Renewal
by Ivylore
Summary: Post ROTJ/ Han, Leia and Luke. A darker spin on the events in the years after the Galactic Civil War. This is the edited version from my site. Now that my site is down I wanted to make sure it was archived here as well.
1. Chapter 1

~Chapter 1~

There were few things Leia Organa hated more than feeling nervous. Feeling nervous in public places was one of them.

To her relief, there were none amidst the hustle and bustle of the supply hanger who openly stopped working to watch her. Even seeking to be inconspicuous, her presence caused a subtle stir. The deck hands suddenly applied themselves to their tasks at hand with newfound dedication; the officers barked their orders with terser authority; the data processors typed faster. She noticed the changes but pretended she didn't, hoping that in exchange, no one was truly noticing her. If they were indeed, they undoubtedly saw that her hands were anxiously smoothing her hair and refastening the clasps on her flight jacket, or that her attention hadn't left the figure at the far end of the walkway since she'd entered the hanger.

The source of her uneasiness was, from the looks of it, doing last minute flight checks and chatting amicably with the Twi'lek Deck Officer next to the _Razion's Edge_. Garbed today in the emblazoned tan uniform of a Republic General, his weapon of choice dangled below his hip in lieu of a blaster. No one could possibly mistake him for anyone else.

"General Skywalker," she called, opting to stick to formalities for the moment. The echo of her voice in the hanger made her cringe.

Luke spun at the sound of her voice and hurried forward to kiss her cheek. "Leia." The gentle brush of a warm Force greeting added a 'happy to see you.'

She smiled but didn't return the unseen gesture, hugging him warmly instead. "If we get out of here right away we'll avoid the send-off party I heard clicking behind me in the corridors."

"I'm all for that," he assured her, agreeing with the obvious logic in avoiding last-minute political entanglements. He turned back to the Twi'lek and nodded. "I guess we're all set. The supplies are loaded and," he playfully nudged her closer to the on-ramp, "my co-pilot's here."

The Twi'lek raised his palm in his traditional farewell, leku twitching like live serpents in accompaniment, "Ma-Allesh, General Skywalker, Your Highness."

"Thank you," they chimed in unison.

_General Skywalker_, she repeated quietly to herself, boarding the Lambda-class shuttle ahead of him. Hearing his commission spoken aloud again sounded strange, although it had been months since he'd re-accepted it. She tossed her carryall in one of the crew quarters and made her way to the cockpit, pausing between the pilot and co-pilot's seats. After so many years flying with Luke and Han, old habit made her choose the latter. He joined her a moment afterward, toggling switches and starting the engine. It whined too loudly at first to allow conversation and she waited until the C-Board was illuminated to speak.

"The shuttle's secure?" she asked. Over two and a half years since the Alliance's victory against the Empire at Endor, strict security measures were still a necessary and unavoidable reality, even at Home Fleet. Cursory checks for tampering and bugs were preformed religiously.

"All clear," he replied. The Nav-Com unit's view vid supplied the coordinates of their plotted course. Luke double checked them and buckled the polyweave g-straps across his chest. "You ready?"

"Let's go."

The hanger doors of the New Republic flagship in orbit over Coruscant opened to reveal the vast expanse of light and darkness. There were gas clouds left behind by stars that had gone nova thousands of years ago, proto-stars, dwarf stars, neutron stars that had once reigned as supergiants, black holes whose spiraling matter gave them an eerie glow; all comprised the interstellar neighbourhood outside. The tiniest percentage of those stars had solar systems that sustained life, and even then, it was more than could be counted or categorized or even explored. They said a true spacer lived his life forever humbled, forever respectful of his insignificance in the universe, able to find novelty in every starry gaze. A being in the universe was no more than an atom or the tiniest speck of sand on the beaches of Hallomar. For the moment, that suited Leia just fine, to be a speck, a dot, anonymous out here.

Luke guided them out and gave curt replies to the port authority clearing them for a hyperspace jump, as well as tuning in to the crackling broadcasts of the METOSP communications frequency. They were pre-set to jump onto the Corellian Trade Spine once they cleared the last realspace marker. That would shave quite a bit of time off this trip, although it would still be four days until they reached the Outer Rim. It wasn't until the gravitational thrusts of the hyperdrive motivators kicked in, that she sank back into her seat and absorbed herself in the dynamic visual displays and flashing colors streaking by. Her father had always said the views from hyperspace travel were like watching a Kallakean Rainbow, although she'd never seen one herself, so it could have just been one of his many overly descriptive expressions.

_Finally_, she sighed inwardly. _I am finally getting away_.

"So," he prodded, switching them to autopilot and tilting his chair around slightly so that she had his full attention. "Since when do you address me as General? Should I start calling you Councillor Organa?"

She smirked and let her stare rest unabashed. In the six months since she'd seen him last, he'd cut his hair shorter, losing the highlights, and his face bore a fading tan, making his eyes bluer and more youthful. He was the same old Luke though, relaxed and in control, studying her back in return in search of the familiar and the new.

"Your hair's longer," he decided.

"And I haven't seen you in uniform since… I can't remember when."

He looked down at himself as though he'd forgotten what he was wearing and picked at his military decorations. "Oh. I had a meeting this morning with the aforementioned send-off party."

"Where you offered to pilot the cargo shuttle of all things," she breezed, trying to cover her skepticism. "I didn't even know you were back with the fleet until a few hours ago." The last message she'd received from him said he'd be meeting up with her after she returned from Advanced Base Baskarn.

"Are you insinuating that serving as an escort is beneath me," he teased. "Or do I need a better excuse to get you to myself for a few days?"

Along with escorting her, Luke would be leading a number of Imperial garrison raids in the Outer Sector to rescue political leaders imprisoned at the start of the war. Still, it was hardly a job that required a Jedi - any of the New Republic's top pilots and operatives was more than competent - but their government would not have been in a position to refuse his request for the assignment. His file had been dumped across her desk in recent weeks with a '_will not be renewing._' What she suspected, and Luke probably knew, was that the Inner Council had granted his last minute request in the hopes that she could change his mind. She wouldn't. They'd been through this last year, and his sabbatical, quest, search for Jedi Artifacts, whatever he called it, had been interrupted far too long. She thought much of this, then said quickly, "Of course not."

As for herself, the assignment wasn't exactly congruent with her beliefs, nor had anyone wanted her to take it. Ten other less than diplomatic want-to-be bureaucrats had fought her on it. The executive within the Alliance wanted the freed prisoners de-briefed, and if at all possible, persuaded to clamour for New Republic support when they returned to their home worlds. Many of the prisoners were natives of worlds that were reluctant to declare their allegiance to the burgeoning New Republic. In her mind, it was reasonable to say 'persuade,' was the understatement of year for what some officious representatives intended. Using innocent people, people who'd suffered, bystanders in the galactic conflict, on the pretext of working for the greater good didn't sit well with her. They weren't that desperate _yet_, and they'd be no better than the Empire if they resorted to coercive measures.

Being their designated emissary killed two birds with one stone; one, making sure Fey'lya didn't get his claws into these people before she'd had a chance to tactfully convince them. Secondly, and most importantly, it got her away from Coruscant. Even if Luke's unexpected presence defeated half the purpose; it was better than nothing.

Intuitive as always, he said, "I'm amazed they're actually letting you escape the take-over proceedings on Coruscant?"

The emphasis on _escape _made her defensive. "This mission's important, Luke."

"I didn't say it wasn't," he replied calmly. "I just thought Mon Mothma had you so entrenched in everything going on that you couldn't get away."

"The Old Republic wasn't built in a day," she replied, trying to match his tone and failing. "The new one can't be either. If it's going to collapse without me there for two weeks that doesn't say much about what we have accomplished, now does it?"

He grinned, more like the old Luke, eyes twinkling with amusement. "You need a break, eh? Why can't you just admit it?"

It was the perfect cover. She crossed her legs and spun her chair around. "Okay. Yeah," she admitted, drumming her fingers on her armrest. "Transition from military commander to pure politician is a bit unnatural I guess. I'm not used to living behind the scenes... sitting in the little backrooms making the decisions about how to win battles. I'm used to being out there. But before I bore you to death with the details, how'd it go at Folor?"

Seeing a sly grin form, she interjected before he could ask. "I had nothing to do with you being offered the guest instructor's position there. Your military record made you their top candidate before they asked me. Honest."

"I believe you," he replied, nodding his head. "I just can't believe I got issued one of the new Y-wings for it though."

"_Not _me either," she affirmed, hiding her smile. _Not exactly true._ Mon Mothma had asked her if he'd accept it, and she'd advised her not to give him a choice. "But how'd it go?"

"I think they were impressed-"

"The review said that you had them eating out your hand after two days."

"Someone's exaggerating," he modestly replied. "It flew by. It was exciting to work with the new recruits...and get a chance to catch up with Wedge. Made me remember what it was like way back when we started… and it gave me a lot of insight into what it will be like when I am teaching."

"I'm surprised they let you go."

He shrugged. "It's not that they didn't make me a tempting offer; I just had more pressing issues to deal with right now." There was a flicker of reluctance in his eyes. "We do."

_Surprise_, she thought cynically. _What did you expect? That he would offer to escort you so you two could have tea and chat about current events_?

"We'll save it for later. We don't need to get into it now. You…" He gave her another once over. "Have they been running you round the clock again? You look exhausted."

Self-consciously straightening, she willed life and color into her features. "The usual. And I was up all night… uh, packing."

"That one little bag you brought with you?"

"I had a lot of last minute paperwork to finish up before I left too."

"Doesn't Winter usually take care of that sort of stuff?"

At the mention of her friend and aide, she frowned. A thousand times over the last few weeks Winter had told her she looked pale or tired, that she wasn't eating enough, that she should lighten up her work load. It was all she could do to drag herself out of bed most mornings. "She has other duties Luke. It's not fair of me to pile everything on her, you know."

He rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I'm a little out of the loop. Why don't you update me on how it's going?"

Grateful for a topic that wasn't personal, she plunged headfirst into it. They had trade disputes, treaty negotiations, petitions to join, threats from the Imperial remnants and ruling councils spearheaded by men such as warlord Zsinj and Moff Getelles, not to mention the havoc wreaked by Ysanne Isard. Not to mention the fact that they were strapped for money and supplies, things they were all too familiar with after the past several years. By the time she'd gotten through recapping most of it, they were well onto the Corellian Trade Spine, and she was yawning every other minute.

"You should really get some sleep," he told her. "We're going to have to go on shifts once we hit the Outer-Rim boundaries."

"I need to check out the files on Baskarn too," she sighed.

"Go ahead. I'll be all right up here."

She slid to edge of her seat, poised to leave. "Are you sure?"

"Scram."

* * *

In the L-shaped lounge off the galley, Leia read datapads on Baskarn, dedicating herself to learning what she could about the little-known planet. Curling her legs beneath her on the foam covered couch, she discovered even the Alliance had never sent a Scout and Exploration team to the surface after setting up Advanced Base Baskarn in the mountains. Nor was there even a record of ownership filed under the Old Republic's 'Name it, Claim it' law in the database. That usually meant one thing in her experience; Baskarn was either completely inhospitable, or deemed utterly worthless. Leave it to the Alliance to always choose some variation of no-man's land for their outposts.

It was the fifth planet in the Derilyn System of the Elrood Sector. Depending on the time of the year its orbit temporarily pulled it closer to its sun than its sister planet, Takornan, so that it competed for position of fourth. Little was actually known about it, but it had been investigated at some point, because there were topographical surveys available, as well as analysis of the gravity, air, water, strange trees, and sketchy references to even stranger creatures called the Yrashu.

The hum of the fusion generators, nicknamed appropriately enough, 'the spacer's lullaby' and the ennui of reading data-pad planetary statistics put her to sleep soon enough.

_"Leia, I've had it with this," he snapped._

_She kept her face a blank, tried not to look at the bed, still in disarray. Maybe… if she reached out her hand she could pull him back, stop what was about to happen. No, she decided, grabbing the sheet to cover herself with, still warm from the heat of their bodies. It wouldn't do any good, not if he was this angry. Even Han had his limits._

_"I really mean it," he began. "And you're not going."_

_"Not going? You can't tell me where I can and can't do-"_

_"Well someone should. And if you don't want to listen to me then maybe you'll listen to your brother."_

_"Leave him out of this."_

_"Well you've gotta do something. Normal people do not-"_

_"Then I'm not normal, obviously," she hissed. "I'm mentally disturbed, unbalanced… whatever you want to call it!"_

_"I'm not saying that. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with you. If you don't want to go to Luke, fine, we'll go away. Just the two of us. Somewhere quiet, somewhere we can be alone, where you can take some time-"_

_"Han, I can't leave right now."_

_"Can't or won't?"_

_"I can't."_

_He reached for his pants. "Are you still going?"_

_She sighed, eyeing the pile of fabric he held ready as an ultimatum. "It's the middle of the night Han. We're both tired. Can we not do th-"_

_"Are you still going?_"

She hadn't wanted to answer that. _"Yes."_

_He began dressing. "I know how badly he hurt you, I understand. What I don't understand is why you're letting him destroy the rest of your life. You want to work yourself to death, wait for a nervous breakdown… I love you but don't expect me to stick around and watch. All I'm doing is trying to help!"_

_"I don't want your help!" She watched him reach for his shirt too. "If you're threatening to leave, go right ahead. Besides which claiming you love me and threatening to leave in the same sentence makes you the biggest hypocrite I know."_

_He pulled it over his head and grabbed his boots. "I do love you. I'm just tired of loving someone who doesn't love herself back. And this isn't a threat." His blaster followed belt and jacket. Fully dressed, he hung on, standing by the bed, as though hoping she might change her mind. "Leia come on. I mean it. Come away with me instead, just for a little while."_

_"I really can't Han," she pleaded. "Maybe in a few weeks, a month-"_

_"You'll say the same thing. You always say the same thing!" He clenched his jaw tightly. "Well I never figured you were much for good-byes! I guess this is it, sweetheart._"

This time she dreamed she went after him, let the sheet pool at her feet and wrapped her arms around him.

_"Okay Han. Okay we'll go anywhere you want…_"

This time he stayed, drew her back to the bed and made love to her. Only it wasn't real; memories and phantom touches left her body so wrought with tension and the need for release she begged and pleaded with him, but in her dream he pulled from her just enough to keep her from finding her own fulfillment. She awoke with a terrible sense of emptiness, aching for him in a way she hadn't allowed herself for so long, a grief as familiar as his smell on the clothes he'd left behind, in her bed, on his pillow.

_I should have gone after him,_ she thought desolately. _I should have_.

She sat up and untwisted the light pasmin cloak that had been tucked over her, swearing to herself. Uneasily she eyed the datapads stacked on the desk, checked her chrono and discovered it had been six standard hours since they'd left Coruscant. She prayed whatever she'd been dreaming had not been written all over her face when Luke did that.

The dream unnerved her. It wasn't the sex she missed the most, although in her dreams her body longed for him as keenly as her heart did when she was awake. And Han was, well… Han was anything but innocent and inexperienced when it came to that area, and was exactly the type of man parents warned their daughters about. _He'll leave you heartbroken and without a shred of virtue_, they would say, to which Han would have replied, _but sweetheart if it feels good _… With a glass or two of wine in her system, he was capable of making anything he wanted to do _feel _good, even if it was illegal in a half dozen star systems.

"Stop it Leia," she whispered.

It was time to face the fact that those nights, all those lopsided smiles and stupid jokes that she loved and pretended she didn't, the way he made her feel like she belonged to him, the way he rubbed her back and held her – all of it, all of it, all of it was over. She'd been cut adrift from the one person who was, in a transient sense, the nearest thing she had to a home, a soul mate, the one person from whom she could hide nothing. Han saw through her all the time, and he loved her in spite of it - or she thought he had. It was time to face that maybe he hadn't after all and that hurt the most.

The line of thought depressed her. Next thing she knew she'd be pining away for his stupid ship.

Someone (though there was no actual need to guess _who_) was making a lot of noise in the galley, clanging and banging pots around. The thick aroma of Tockberries and an unidentifiable meat was wafting into the lounge as well. "Let me guess," she murmured to herself, heading for the doorway. "He's actually cooking."

Luke ceased poking at whatever was in the oven and peered over his shoulder. "I was just coming to get you. Are you hungry?"

"Starved," she admitted. Her melancholy took an abrupt turn at the sight of her brother in an apron. "Getting in touch with your domestic side again?"

He chuckled and slapped his hand on the counter. "At least one of us has one," he teased. "I have only two words for you… _Endwa Stew_."

She scowled insincerely and slid into the booth round the table.

The injustice of it all was that she had only ruined a meal once and that really hadn't been her fault. Whoever would have known that the thermic baster on the _Falcon _was modified to cook everything at the equivalent of lightspeed, or that the replicators used standard Corellian measurements, not Galactic? Who knew Endwa was best served this side of _raw_. Han had in turn, merrily exaggerated the smoky and heavily spiced disaster for Luke's amusement, and worse, Luke had believed it, demolishing her belief in brotherly loyalty in one fell swoop. Besides, that had been over a year ago.

"I scrounged through the cabins for better things to eat than the rations," he whispered, looking both ways as though someone might hear him. "Think they'll notice?"

She laughed. The cargo compartments and cabins were stocked full of medical supplies and _food,_ good food too, not the barely palatable stuff stockpiled in the ship's galley. "They'll forgive you – or I can play with the inventory list to cover it up." The table was already set. Guiltily she scanned the counters. If the mess was any indication, he'd gone through quite a bit of trouble.

"Perfect, now I've made you an accessory after the fact."

"You could have woken me. I could have helped."

"But you said you were up all night doing paperwork, remember. Besides, how often do I get to serve royalty dinner?"

She couldn't remember the last time Luke had made her dinner, let alone the last time they had actually had dinner together, and that realization made her sad. "Not often. Were there any strange reports from METOSP or the other frequencies while I was sleeping? Sector Patrol? Channel 1?"

He shook his head, dishing out two healthy servings of his culinary creation. "No, but you can never be too careful. Sector Patrol hasn't spent much time out here lately, and there's always a good chance some fractionated Imperial activity's been going on. We don't have the most updated sources."

She'd been right about the Tockberries. Luke had also 'acquired' a fresh bunch of Balka leaves and wrapped the meat in neat little bundles, packed with spices and whatever else he'd scrounged up. She touched one with her fork and felt it jiggle. "_This _isn't raw is it?"

"No, it's traladon. Do you want water?"

"Yes, thank you." She remembered the Corellian fleet tended to linger this far away from their system, although they didn't generally interfere with New Republic ships outside their jurisdiction. When Luke returned with their glasses, she asked, "Any murmurs from Corellia Public Safety Service?"

"Not so far. Are we having the same problems with them?"

"You mean, is the Diktat of Corellia still refusing to deal with us, and threatening every planet in their system with embargoes if they do?"

Luke grimaced and took the seat across from her. "Adhering to their long instilled values of isolationism."

She sighed. "Well, the Merchant's Guild certainly has its men crawling through our hallways. As long as there are deals to be made, we're still getting things we need from them. Nevertheless, it would be a major coup for the New Republic to be able to announce that they're on our side - which would carry considerable weight with the colonies in the Outer Rim. On the other hand, we've recruited quite a few of Corsec's best members who didn't agree with the Diktat when he disbanded it in favour of the CPSS, but they're..."

"Self proclaimed mercenaries," Luke supplied.

"Of course. Now why that should surprise me I'll never know."

"Speaking of the reason we're not surprised," he asked casually, "Where is he? I got a crazy message a few weeks back. Nothing since."

She shrugged and tried to make light of it. "He's in the Sumitra Sector on assignment and last I heard he was making a stop at Kashyyyk with Chewie too. The Force only knows how long that'll turn into."

"Well, Chewie deserves some time at home," Luke pointed out, misinterpreting her frustration. "But haven't you talked to him lately?"

She shrugged again.

"What's going on?" he asked a second later, continuing to gaze at her inquisitively.

"Nothing."

"You must have talked to him?"

"Well, I didn't."

He said, more softly, "Leia it's _me._"

She didn't want to talk about this now, particularly with Luke. Thinking about it pricked her eyes with tears. "I really just needed to get away for a while too, to clear my head. There's been a lot going on."

Luke reached over to squeeze her arm. "Did something happen between you two, some sort of fight?"

"Can we not? I mean it?"

"Ahh. Okay." He started to cut into his meat, sighed, then set his utensils down and gave her a sympathetic look as if apologizing for not being able to stop himself. "Because I know you two will work it out. You always do."

"Yeah," she muttered bitterly, the irony being that until recently she had truly hoped so as well. Luke could utter soothing assurances all he wanted but, no, they wouldn't work anything out. There wasn't any foreseeable future with things _working out _for her. Han had been the one who left; he'd been the one who ran way in the first place. Forlorn hopes of reconciliation just prolonged her agony. Her brother's words sounded pathetically youthful and naive. "Let's eat and talk about something else."

* * *

By the time they'd finished dinner, Leia almost felt normal, happy even. She'd updated her brother on the little she'd learned about their destination and lamented the fact that she expected Baskarn to be about as fun as the Kessel mines. Luke in turn, rambled on about the highlights of his teaching experience, most of which revolved around a student pilot by the name of Quigg.

Quigg, Luke told her, had been his greatest challenge; admitted to the Folor training program with scores scraping so hard along the minimum requirements they practically toppled them over. But he was bound and determined to be a pilot, no matter what it took, although it was clear to Luke from the beginning it would require nothing short of a miracle from day one. Day in and day out the teenager consistently was the first to die on practice runs, the first to set off sensors, missed his shots, reversed coordinates. The only thing Quigg had excelled at was the sims – he practiced on them every spare moment he had after hours. He loved to stay up late in the rec center long after his fellow students had packed it in.

Luke confessed to her that for fun, he had often stayed up and played, routinely setting sim records that his students tried to beat. Quigg was only student who ever succeeded.

Leia thought that was a bit odd. Luke's eyes twinkled merrily. Of course it was, he explained, especially since Quigg tended to break his scores late at night when no one else was around. By all accounts, based on his sim records, he should have been heading for a career as one of the Alliance's greatest pilots. Instead, he was at the bottom of his class. However, the computerized sims were used for testing, so their systems were 'splice-proof,' according to the school's technician. Thinking he was failing his student somehow, Luke had re-doubled his efforts. Repeatedly, Quigg proved unable to progress; he lacked the ability to multi-task, combine reflexes and fast thinking.

"So I decided he _had _to be cracking into the sim programs somehow. I tried everything else. There was simply no way he was beating my scores honestly."

"You sound pretty sure of yourself," she scoffed.

"I do, huh?"

"Well, was he?

Luke nodded, beaming openly. "My scores! I stayed up late one night and waited in the back of the rec center. Quigg played until everyone was gone, and then, sure enough, he dragged out all this high-fangled decoding equipment he'd built on his own."

"What did you do?" Tampering with Alliance codes was a serious offence, particularly in their training programs.

"What else could I do?" Luke laughed, "I sent him to Intelligence. He's been transferred to their decryption program. We made a pact that night. I agreed not to turn him in if he agreed to never re-apply for the training program on Folor. Turned out he _loves _the encryption program on Coruscant."

"What in the world was someone with that sort of technical genius doing in our pilot program anyway?" she wondered. "Wouldn't his marks on the entrance exams have been relayed to Intelligence regardless?"

"He flubbed that section on purpose," Luke explained. "Otherwise he would never have been there. But his brother flew with us. Quigg wanted to be the next family hero." He shrugged. "Happens a lot."

She set her elbows on either side of her plate and rested her utensils. "Why do I get the feeling Quigg has some sort of relevance to what you wanted to discuss with me? And is it good new or bad news?"

Luke speared his last bite of traladon and chewed fast. "Unexpected news."

For a heartbeat she paled. _This can't possibly be about you. There's no way he would know_. "Unexpected huh?"

He finished swallowing and sipped the last of his water. "Here goes. You remember that night on Endor," he began, "shortly after we got back from Bakura, when we decided it would be best for both of us if we kept our parentage secret?"

"Yes," she nodded. They'd decided it would be best for all concerned if it wasn't widely known that Vader's progeny were instrumental players in the Alliance. Not just for their safety, but also for sake of the fears that their close ties to the deceased Emperor and his successor would evoke in the populace of the worlds they were negotiating with now. It might not matter that her home had been the Empire's target in an official demonstration of the _Death Star_ capabilities only a few years back. The close circle of friends who knew the truth extended no further than Han, Winter, Chewie and Lando.

He stretched his hands out on the table and sighed. "Quigg came to me with a few datafiles he'd recently hacked into. He's been working in the old infirmary and medical ward, in the far wing of Palpatine's old residence. Not necessarily top priority - but nonetheless they've pulled up quite a few names of people we didn't know had ties to Palpatine. Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader are cross referenced a number of times – same records. Feeling that he owed it to me over what happened on Folor, he brought them to me to ask if I knew anything about them."

Her stomach flip-flopped with apprehension. "But he will turn it in the NRI?"

"He'll have to. I asked if he'd stall the release for a few weeks, but even that stretches the limits. Trouble is... he knows. The records show them to be the same person."

"They'll know who our father became," she said flatly.

"My father," Luke corrected. "They know he was Anakin Skywalker but there's nothing right now tying the Organas or you to any of this."

"Oh."

"I'll go to the Inner Council before it's turned over. Probably right after we return from Baskarn."

"What about me?"

"That's what I wanted to discuss," he intoned quietly. "That's why I needed to see you. What do you want to do?"

She chewed her bottom lip. It had never occurred to her that she would have a choice. It had never occurred to her that her brother might be alone with this. When it came down to it, she didn't feel ready for the galaxy to look at either of them as reminders of what their father had done. It had always been one of those far off points in time, a speck on the horizon that never drew any farther or nearer. It was going to happen; she never had been able to see it happening.

"I'd like for you to be with me," he admitted, inserting his own opinions as if he knew what she'd been thinking. "But I won't pressure you into it. You'll remain anonymous if you wish, but you'll have to take into account that there's no telling what will turn up down the line. It might be worse for you to let it go."

"I see," she said coolly, guarding her expression, wondering if her brother's calm façade would trap her into saying the wrong thing.

"And, look, I'm not saying we have to announce it to the New Republic or on the Holonet, just... test the waters with the Inner Council and Mon Mothma. You know we can trust her."

"And if we find out we can't I'll have Fey'lya start rabble-rousing to have me ousted based on it," she interjected. "He would too, and you know it, either that or start clamouring for my resignation. And the end result would be him on the Holonet enlightening..."

"Come on Leia," he sighed. "Your position isn't _that _tenuous. You're one of the signers of the 'Declaration of a New Republic'. Fey'lya would be digging a grave for his own career if he did that."

"You think I'm paranoid then?" she retorted. It was bad enough that Fey'lya, Tuomi, and a few other councillors had challenged her diplomatic status, claiming there weren't enough citizens of Alderaan left for her to warrant inclusion on the Inner Council. Luke just didn't know, didn't see how much backstabbing went on. Everyone was driving for a position of influence and clout, afraid to lose an inch in the formation of rule, afraid that his or her vision might be superseded by the actions of the person sitting next to them. She was certainly no exception. The birth of the New Republic wasn't without its labour pains. At times it edged perilously close to anarchy within.

"No," he admonished. "But if you choose not to do this, don't use your political situation to hide the fact that the whole issue is personal to begin with."

"Of course it's personal too, that's the key issue here," she exclaimed.

"Leia, it's not going to go away because of that," he reminded her. "We are who we are…"

_So you might as well face it_.

It hung unspoken in the air between them but he might as well have said it aloud.

She sighed. This wasn't Luke's fault. None of it was. He was only trying to do the best he could for both of them. As well, _not _forewarning the Inner Council before the news was made public could be even more disastrous to her career than not - or whatever she would have left of one under the current circumstances. Luke was right; they might not have much of a choice and as much as she didn't want to do this, she couldn't allow her brother to stand there alone and admit Darth Vader was his father. "Okay," she replied weakly. "You're right. If it's going to come out I have no more to lose by being the one to announce it."

"We'll be together."

"It won't make it any easier."

"I know."

Neither one said anything for a few moments after that. Maybe Luke too was picturing the disgusted faces of the Council. She watched his fingers twitch and fidget. It was very unlike him to let his anxiousness show. For the life of her, she couldn't imagine what else there could be. His hands kept twitching until she nearly grabbed them with her own to make them cease their irritating dance. "Is there something else?"

He caught her glaring with vexation at his hands and dropped them beneath the table. "I've been thinking... We're going to have to worry about a lot more when this gets out. Once people know, they'll also know you possess the same potential I have, that he had. You'll have to anticipate how to handle that."

And by _handle that _she knew what he was inferring. The thinly veiled reference to Luke's future plans to teach instinctively set her on edge and her gaze flickered to the handle of the lightsaber attached to his belt. Once upon a time, he had told her to take all the time she needed, that he'd always be ready when she was. However, over the past year, his benevolence had become tempered with criticism he never articulated, and his patience had developed a ring of falsity about it, as though he thought by assuring her of it he was working his own variation of reverse psychology. The day would inevitably come when he would slip the heavy grip of his lightsaber into her hand, and the idea sickened her.

Announcing that Vader was their father was one thing; to train would mean accepting it – at least part of it. There was no fibre of her being or soul that didn't scream with revulsion.

"Things will change," he continued. "You'll be vulnerable to people who will want to manipulate you, exploit you because of your potential, the same way Palpatine wanted to exploit mine."

"Just because I'm agreeing to come forward doesn't mean I'm agreeing to everything else. Luke, believe it or not I've made it so far quite well on my own."

"It might not be enough."

This was it then. Luke had known she would react this way. She stared at her plate, the remnants of their dinner. This dinner had been his way of softening her up, getting her attention, getting her to relax. It wasn't so much _what _he was proposing that fueled the ire behind what she said next as it was his subtle attempt to manipulate her, going through all the trouble of preparing a meal with the intention of springing this on her.

"Luke," she began, "Let me make this clear to you. Bail Organa was my father and I'm not going to dishonour his memory, give up his life's dream – forget what Alderaan stood for – to follow in your footsteps. You can't expect me to give that up! I won't do it! Bail will always be the person who raised me! Maybe my purpose in life is different then yours – but it doesn't make what I do, how I've chosen to live my life any less important."

"Leia, I never said you have to give up your work. You know that for several millennia the Jedi served as diplomats and peacemakers. It _is _part of who you are… that's what makes you good at it. Consider how much more effective you would be if you accepted the other talents you've inherited."

"Don't patronize me by cloaking this under how it would be beneficial to my work," she exhorted. "I don't care!"

Her brother closed his eyes, and ran his hands through his hair with an exasperated sigh that was all too familiar to her. "_Leia… Leia_…Can't we even have a civil conversation about this? I'm not saying decide today or next week, or next month."

She wished suddenly that she hadn't eaten, felt her stomach tighten into a knot that threatened to climb back up her throat. "Then what do you want?"

"Your open-mindedness, for starters," he replied. "You can't throw up walls at me every time I mention his name."

"They're not walls, Luke. I hate talking about him. I hate remembering him. I don't know what sort of delusions you've conjured up to make who he was when he died more important than who he was when he lived but they're not going to work on me."

He shook his head. "You're not the only one. I hate thinking about what he became too."

"Then you of all people should understand where I'm coming from."

"I do."

"I am never going to forgive him."

"_Never _is a very strong word."

Her eyes narrowed. "It works for me. Would you prefer I lie to you?"

Luke flushed and slumped against the backrest. "No."

"Then-" She pushed herself up from the table. "-Thank you for dinner. If you'll excuse me."

* * *

"Way to go Skywalker," he mumbled to himself after she left. He'd intended to bring up the training question with a little more finesse, had ended up blundering through the argument instead. _I should go after her… or I shouldn't… or I should... or I shouldn't_?

Then again, his sister was stuck with him for another few days in hyperspace, so if there'd ever been a good time to have this out when she couldn't run away from him, this was it. A few more moments of consideration changed his mind. If he waited too long he'd be subjected to a long-winded and carefully prepared soliloquy that would make his head spin.

Her eschewal of everything force-related, which was starting to seem more like a life style choice than a phase, frustrated him to no end. The idealist in him had crashed years ago, but he was still somewhat of a realist, and like or not, she was Anakin's daughter, no matter how often she claimed she was Bail's alone. In his darkest moments of introspection he wondered if his life since Endor might have been easier if he had killed him, never seen the face of the man who was his real father, never been destined to spending his life trying to forgive him. Like it or not, he had to. It was the only chance he had at not giving into his rage, not starting down the same path that Yoda had so often warned him against. He separated the two, the evil incarnate and the man to make it bearable.

Leia couldn't.

By default of fate, on his father's behalf, on Ben's behalf, on behalf of the future, he regarded her as his responsibility.

The cockpit was empty so he marched to her cabin door, rapped on it and called for her. No one answered. After a dozen rat-a-tats there was still no answer.

He palmed the door's release, finding it locked it from the inside. There was a moment of guilty hesitation before he commanded it to override, then stepped inside the room. The sparse quarters were empty but for a few scattered belongings. He could hear the modulated sound of water running inside the fresher, and picked up the few clothes draped over the cheaply covered orange couch and set them on the bed. Then he sat down to wait.

A few moments later she emerged, looking wan and red-eyed. Her face was freshly washed and the neck of her tunic was dark with water splotches. It did little to cleanse her expression of its sheer irritation. "Why doesn't this surprise me?" she clipped coldly. "I don't know what a locked door means to you but where I come from it's not an invitation to break in."

"We're not through," he reprimanded, though his tone came out softly. She looked like she'd been crying.

There was nowhere for her to sit but on the couch beside him or the bunk but she didn't take either seat. Instead she remained standing in the center of the room with her arms crossed. "Yes we are."

"Leia we need to talk, not play games."

"Oh that's funny. _I'm _playing a game here? What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You really don't get it, do you?"

"Get what?"

The fight in her subsided momentarily, only to be replaced by a profound sense of loss and regret. "No. I don't suppose you would."

"Leia…" He wasn't sure if she was referring to the conversation she'd walked out on or not, but he was determined to stay on topic. "I want us to finish."

"There's no finish," she exclaimed, stamping her foot. "You have my decision. I don't know what part of '_no_' you don't understand. I don't know what you think gives you the right to barge in here and demand I listen to you, to break into my room, but you don't have one!"

"You're my sister-" he began.

"Yes I am and isn't that convenient for you," she proclaimed. Finally she took the edge of her bunk. "That's all it is."

"_Convenient?_"

She laughed sardonically. "It _is funny,_ actually. Bestow the title and poof," she waved her hand, "you can take everything else for granted because blood means I'm connected to you whether I want to be or not."

He leaned onto his legs and shook his head. Obviously they weren't picking up where they'd left off; this was something entirely different. "I don't take you for granted."

"Serving as my escort is beneath you. You're here because you wanted to talk about… _that,_ not for any other reason. And that hurts."

The accusation was childish. This had been urgent. They were adults and the fact that their lives drove them in so many different directions was not solely his fault. It was on the tip of his tongue to snap that this mission didn't exactly require her expertise either, that it hadn't escaped his notice that her departure date had been two days before he was expected at Coruscant, and five before Han was due to return from the Sumitra Sector. But still, she looked hurt enough for him to soften. "Leia what exactly have I done?"

"It's not so much anything you've done," she murmured, staring at the wall. "It's more what you haven't."

He dug his nails into the couch's armrest, gouged the linty fabric. "I'm not sure what you're saying. If this had anything to do with what happened between you and Han, you never contacted me. How was I supposed to know?"

"It's not just that. It's not so simple."

Luke stared at her, a little confused, lost on exactly what it was he hadn't done. Assuming this had more to do with their tentative agreement, he tried again. "I told you I'd go alone if you wanted, if it's about the records."

"That's not it either. I said I would do it Luke and I meant it. This just isn't a good time for this to have happened. I have too many things up in the air."

"Does it have anything to do with you pulling a vanishing act the week Han and I were coming back?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you're overreacting for starters," he dared, opening himself enough to let her emotions flood his consciousness. The hostility he encountered was overwhelming. He frowned. Often her way of coping with their link was to draw his attention elsewhere, like an actress, not mentally block him the way another Jedi would have - the way he'd blocked his father. It was simple and effective, a pure Leia innovation. Usually he let it slide, feigned ignorance, but today he wasn't going to buy it. "You're not telling me something."

"Oh, stop it! Isn't breaking into my cabin enough?"

Luke closed off. "Why are you so angry with me?"

"Remember that message I sent you over the break on Folor?"

Sure he did. _Are you going to be coming to Coruscant this week_? He couldn't remember the dates exactly, but one of his students had invited him to Chorax, only two hours from Folor, not twenty-five, as Coruscant was. At that point he'd been itching to get off the Base, but had been spending most of his days flying, hadn't wanted to sit for another full day in his Y-Wing. "Yes?"

"Well why didn't you?"

"Was I supposed to read something else into it?" he implored, suddenly guilty because he knew where this was headed. "You asked if I would be coming to Coruscant… you never said, _please do._"

She stood back up. "And you couldn't read between the lines? Luke it's been six months since I saw you last…"

"And you're mad at me because I can't read your mind five systems away?"

"No. I'm angry because it never would have occurred to you to come on your own!"

He mimicked her pose, standing with her and folding his arms in the same defensive manner. "I don't know what's going on with you but if it was that bad and you told me I would have been there…"

"I know you would have been there."

"Then what?"

"You're here now because this all is coming up, and it's urgent. You would have come during the break if I asked you and said I needed to see you. Thank you, thank you so much, Luke." Her words dripped with unbridled facetiousness. "It's great, really great, reassuring, to know that in an emergency I can count on you but on any other given day you're too busy to give a-"

"Leia, don't even say it," Luke snapped, bracing himself for another onslaught.

None came. She stormed back into the fresher. The muffled sound of sonics and running water filtered through the door a second later.

"I give up," he said aloud. He'd certainly come no closer to figuring out women over the last few years, least of all his sister. Maybe this was hormonal or she was over tired. They had not even come close to discussing anything he'd come in here wanting to talk about.

* * *

Luke was absorbed in a far away reverie that transcended all space beyond the transparisteel viewports by the time they crossed out of the Core. He'd tried to sleep but he felt too heartsick, too wound up. For the twentieth time, he asked the binary streaks of light what it was he'd done wrong. Maybe Ben or Yoda, even his father was out there listening, but they weren't answering.

Leia was extremely angry with him and her insinuation that he'd let her down wounded him to the core. The fact that his conscience was nagging at him about it made him feel even worse.

In hindsight the brevity of the message had been atypical, so it stuck out like a sore thumb amidst her usual detailed reports about what was going on. And come to think of it, Solo had vanished from her communications completely about four months back too. Now that _should _have caught his attention. If Han was away on assignment, and Leia wasn't speaking to him (so he assumed), there'd been some form of break. Leia's pride no doubt interfered, refused to let her tell him. Han's last message to him had said he'd be stopping off on Kashyyyk to drink Grakkyyn until he fell from the treetops, but then again, Han's messages were never serious.

He sighed. Trying to analyze their relationship was like attempting to solve a Level 10 Hapen Thought Puzzle. The Corellian was his closest friend, and Leia his sister, but more than once he'd wanted to throttle both of them when the bickering grew more annoying than entertaining. The big bang that constantly threatened to dissolve their trio had been long anticipated, but he'd hoped and prayed the day would never come.

He wished he had a better picture of what was going on, if this was temporary or permanent and hoped Leia would feel like opening up later.

The view-vid lit up on schedule for its fifteen minute update, happily bleeping out their current location in relation to the Core, trajectory, average speed, engine temperatures and the like. Info for the illiterate pilot, he supposed, who couldn't actually read the screens. Give the galaxy another century, and a pulse would be the only prerequisite for the pilot's exam.

He did a few calculations. Eighty hours to go before they exited hyperspace and hopped onto the Elrood-Derilyn Trade Route. Incognito and inconspicuousness was the name of the game once they made it there. He just hoped if anyone asked for clearance codes and a registered destination the ones they had would be convincing. Heavens forbid they were actually boarded by the Sector authority. A Y-wing could sneak into the system undetected, but not a supply shuttle such as the one they navigated now. His own Y-wing had been flown out ahead of him on a larger transport, and was probably waiting idly at the base.

He heard the pattering of footsteps, turned to see Leia making her way through the halo-lit hall to the cockpit with a mug in each hand. She presented one to him and took the co-pilot's chair.

"Thanks." It was hot Aitha, the standard protein drink always stocked on long flights. He started to search her emotions, remembered how angry she'd become in her cabin and stopped himself. He placed his mug in one of the moulded holders by the C-board for it to cool and folded his hands behind his head, wondering what to say or how to begin.

She blew on the surface of her own beverage. "I don't think our first twelve hours together have gone very well," she began. "I'm sorry."

"Me too."

Eyes still puffy and red from crying widened. "What are you sorry for?"

"It was my uncle's favourite way to end an argument with my aunt. Apologize, grovel, apologize, grovel, apologize-"

"I get it," she interjected. The tiniest smile appeared. "How about we compromise? I'll apologize and we'll leave the grovelling to you."

"Yeah… you're not the grovelling type. Look Leia, I hate seeing you this upset."

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I'm not usually like that. I overreacted. I just need some time to digest all of this before you start in with this whole training business. You know how I am when I feel like my back is up against a wall and it's too much all at once."

He caved. Four days of confinement with a twin whose anger could bombard him through primordial means was more than he could stand, more than he wanted to sentence either of them to. "That's fair," he decided. "How about we drop it until after the mission if you promise to at least think about it?"

A trifle suspiciously, she added, "No badgering me?"

"You'll _really _think about it?"

"Yes."

With a semblance of a truce struck, Luke reached for his Aitha and started wondering _what _exactly had her so bent out of shape to begin with. Six months was a long time, especially when it was reduced to dog-eared flimsiplasts printed by the Downtime recreational center's console.

Leia started chewing her nails and stared absentmindedly out the window. "I don't want you to start prying either," she announced. "When I feel like talking about it I will and yes that includes _him_."

He pointed to the game table behind her chair. "I'm still the undefeated holochess champion."

* * *

Leia shoved her concerns to the deepest recesses of her mind over the next few days, preoccupied with memorizing dossiers and preparing notes. It wasn't merely that thinking around Luke was like writing in a journal with someone standing over her shoulder - the imminent fear of invaded privacy was disconcerting. Working herself up into the crying jags she'd been prone to lately would catch his attention no matter where on the ship she was.

Otherwise the duration of the trip proved blissfully uneventful. They were tied 6/6 in their holochess marathon when they briefly reverted from hyperspace after crossing into the Outer Rim. Luke pointed out the Moonflower Nebula, a large cloud of swirling gases and dust located on the fringes of the Arkanis sector, which their plotted trajectory was veering by. The Nebula was one of the few spatial anomalies visible with the naked eye from Tatooine, and he told her he used to watch it move through the skies at night when he was growing up. She felt the mildest twinges of homesickness through their Force-bond as he spoke, which seemed ironic given that he claimed he never wanted to return.

The Elrood-Derilyn trade route took them alongside the Drift, a massive cloud of interstellar gas that stretched hundreds of light years across. Sensors and vision were blinded by the dense field of violet gasses, making it a certain danger to space travelers. If one were to veer off course, or flee inside the cloud to hide during an attack and get lost, a lightspeed jump from inside would most likely be the last a ship ever made. No vessels nav-com systems could plot a course outside it without fixed readings. To add to the danger, a realspace crawl in search of a way out might take days or years, depending on where one had entered.

Traveling alongside it for over a day made Leia uneasy. She wondered how many lost vessels were drifting within a kilometre of safety, with pilots who didn't know that a simple left of right would have saved them. Unfortunately, the route was the only run connecting all the Elrood, Kidron and Derilyn planetary systems.

By the time they'd entered the Derilyn System and left the Drift in their wake, she'd begun to worry about the Derilyn Space Defense Platform instead. During the early days of Imperial occupation in the Elrood Sector, the Empire had set up an interdiction field around Derilyn to drag ships from hyperspace and seize those without travel waivers. Being captured by unknown Imperial remnants this far from the Core was an unsettling possibility.

When she could see Baskarn and knew they'd made it by safely, she breathed a sigh of relief, and then exhaled a soft "wow". From space it was awe-inspiring. Heavy clouds lingered beneath the planet's thick gold atmosphere, giving it a mythical quality. "Why, it looks like a fairy world," she murmured.

"My thoughts exactly," Luke agreed, switching them over to manual for their descent.

They heard the short beep from the C-board at the same time, followed by two higher tones, and looked at each other quizzically.

"That's odd," she clipped uneasily. A quick check of the Sensor panel revealed all systems were satisfactory, but something felt off, and by the looks of it, Luke felt it too. _I know that sound from somewhere. I know that sound. I know... _"Did that sound familiar to you?"

"Yes." He unclipped his lightsaber and crouched to make a few broad slashes through the plasboard paneling beneath the C-board.

It came to her then. _It's the sound of a detonator re-setting itself_.

Luke swore.

"We're rigged?" she whispered, not needing to see his face to know the answer. Between his chin and shoulder she could see red wires and silver orbs fused into the mainframe system below; one thermal detonator, two concussion bombs.

"Dead man's switches are locked into the landing schematics," he muttered. "And these are attached to the central core of the nav-com unit. If they're up here..."

_There are more_...

The shuttle had been rigged to blow this _whole _time. _Think! _They couldn't make a distress call over the public hailing frequencies – not so near the base. There wasn't time to use the classified frequencies. That left the escape pods and in order to make sure the escape pods made it to Baskarn... "Luke, how long until we're in the gravitational pull of Baskarn?"

"Two minutes," he replied grimly.

"Okay. Leave us on the approach vector until the last minute. We've got two minutes to load anything we need into the escape pod and get off the ship..."

He nodded with immediate understanding, her logic and plan the only viable one. "No automated distress calls."

"No, make one, but not on a classified channel or to the Base. Do it over the public hailing frequency and say we've discovered our ship is rigged and we're in desperate need of assistance. Say we have a thermal detonator locked into our hyperdrive and...Uh...efforts to remove it have resulted in a Korfaise gas leak. No one will board if it doesn't blow. It'll be too..."

"Got it...got it...Okay...Go! Go! Go! I'll copy the set coordinates and be back in one..."

She scrambled, nearly wiping out in the narrow hall before reaching the four-man escape pod, and slammed her hand across the slapswitch, praying the pod hadn't been tampered with. The doors opened. The storage compartment had the prerequisite survival packs inside, and she grabbed whatever she could from the galley, blasters from the supply closet, and stuffed them inside. Their cloaks were the only two personal items in the galley, but she didn't dare risk running to their cabins on the opposite side of the ship. The solitary minute stretched out interminably, and she waited outside the escape pod for Luke, her heart pounding...

_...this thing could go at any second_...

A strong arm shoved her inside and she heard Luke shouting at her to 'buckle up' before she found her seat. He slammed the release lever, and her ears rang with the drop in air pressure when they disengaged. At first she though the gyro-stabilizers were malfunctioning because the shrinking cruiser in the portal appeared upside down, but then she realized her straps weren't digging into her shoulders. No gravity.

"I had a better idea," he murmured, closing his eyes.

She watched in amazement as the _Razion's Edge's _current course altered and it dove headfirst into the planet's atmosphere. The words, _you're going to destroy it_, formed on her tongue before she realized that was precisely his intention. The nosedive should destroy the craft before it reached the ground; the hull would be unable to withstand the heat of the direct descent. The Lambda-class shuttle disappeared from sight, a ticking time bomb waiting...

The amber haze softened and became cloud-like. The pod shook as the gravitational pull of the planet sucked them into the atmosphere. Luke's face, when she dared to look at him again, was taut with concentration and strain. The reverse thrusters switched on automatically, and a second later the propulsion unit roared to life, groaned, screeched and fizzled. Leia knew what that meant instantaneously, though she didn't believe it. They were unable to steer, and if they didn't land right away the reverse thrusters would overheat and they would drop like a meteorite to the surface. Her frantic brain was calculating the odds and thinking absurd thoughts – which weren't going to matter if they failed to land - at the same time.

_If they wanted us dead they would have disabled the escape pod_.

Luke scanned the cloud coverage intensely, looking for a break. "There, there," he pointed. "Brace yourself."

She white knuckled the handgrips in response. The cloud mass broke way to reveal treetops, which began to drag against the underbelly of the craft. Her body jerked upwards against the straps, and then jerked back with a horrible crack as her head hit the side panel. Limbs, foliage and tree trunks whooshed by in a blurry and disorientating whir of colors; upside down, right side up, upside down.

_This is really bad_, she tried to say, but inertia, gravity, and the crash choked her.

* * *

**Woostri: Sumitra Sector**.

Either you loved these places or you hated them.

Han was leaning towards hating it. Woostri was, by far, among the worst of the so-called 'urbanized technopolis' spread throughout the galaxy. It was a solitary continent on a world dominated by water and winds. Glacial melting at the poles was causing the oceans to rise a few inches a year, and the geologists consistently claimed that within a millennium the entire planet would be covered in water, that the highest skyscraper would wind up fifty meters beneath the surface. What little room there was left over after the mix of species staked out or burrowed out living areas was used for breathing and trying to avoid the smog and soaring particle index. That and cater to smugglers and peddlers who needed a safe haven to unload or exchange goods.

Without enough of its own resources to survive without massive assistance and subsidies from the Empire, Woostri had gone 'soft' on most orders of business and trade when the Trade Federation fell apart years ago. Like other 'soft' worlds, it had only taken them two decades to discover that catering to soft crime encouraged harder crimes, that the black market attracted purveyors and buyers of a violent sort, and the violence crept onto its city streets and airways like a plague. The denizens of folk who were born here now either joined the corrupt ruling class of merchants or ineffectually protested against the ruling dictator. Either way, no one was winning, and anyone with credits watched their backs.

Sitting in a nondescript tapcaf, Han squirmed deeper into his corner booth, partly to make himself more inconspicuous, mainly so that the parade didn't wreak havoc with his need to relax. The constant flow of traffic near the front of the tavern was made up of miscreants, smugglers, and other forms of lowlifes he'd once been known to do business with. After dealing with the local Telox-Delcor repair facility, he _needed _to relax, and if the technician was right, he'd better learn to like it here a little and stay out of trouble.

The fact was hyperdrive shells were not easy to come by. Even less easy to come by was the _Falcon's _preferred model of titanium-chromium blend. It was the best, and being the best, it wasn't the sort of part to be found out here. Han hadn't wanted to land on Woostri for that very reason. He and Chewie had stood in the _Falcon's _cockpit bellowing at each other, until the Corellian pilot had reluctantly agreed that no, they didn't have much choice in the matter, that with a fissure running down the shell's side it was only a matter of hours before the hyperdrive went. If it had gone in this sector before they'd landed, chances were the first response to his distress beacon would have been an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Now here they were, a Wookiee and a Corellian, sitting in a corner booth watching the underworld and misbegotten of the universe at work.

Han meditated on recent events, on his recent turn of luck, bitterly. One more shipment to go. One more shipment to go and he would have been done, on his way to Kashyyyk for the break he'd promised Chewie, on his way to Coruscant, on his way to whatever waited for him there.

Sadly, he had no idea.

The Wookiee curled back one side of his lip again, baring pitchy gums and fangs that could crack bone and shred tendons as an afterthought. He barked that there had to be a better place than _this _in the city.

Admittedly, the tavern was a dump, and for a Wookiee to complain it meant conditions were verging on a quarantine from the local health inspector. The two meter giant claimed he could smell the plumbing and waste from downstairs, which Han couldn't, though he wouldn't have put much stake on his own olfactory senses. Above the bar a red holo-lit sign flickered off and on. It read, _'Woostri is sinking',_ and cast a florescent glow across the tables nearest the bar. The decor was hard on the eyes, all sparkles and textured surfaces that reeked of bad taste. Han figured that anyone could probably throw out painted plasboard and plastine tables and as long as you stuck glitter to it they'd think the height of civilized decor had arrived here.

But Han was in a foul mood and the dingy milieu suited him fine. There was also a small amount of perverse gratification to be culled from Chewie's visible displeasure. He shrugged. "If you really don't like it here, go. I don't need you following me around all day." A study of the above bar chrono revealed they had three more hours before they could check back at Telox-Delcor." Han leaned over and winked. "A hairy monster like yourself loitering outside the depot might encourage them to get a move on and find us a replacement shell. What do you say?"

Chewie wasted no time barking his opinion, and Han responded by telling him he didn't care what he did for the afternoon, so long as he met him back at the depot for closing. The _Falcon's _co-pilot acceded soon enough, though not without making a few derogatory remarks regarding Solo's character of late. On this occasion it was Han who had the final laugh. Rubbed off glitter twinkled like tiny stars on the back of Chewie's pelt.

Alone at last, Han settled for creature watching and nursing his grievances against the galaxy with his drink. Near his end of the bar, a pair of local gulped back the evening special, chatting with a human male. Woostri natives were mammalian bipeds, thickly furred and slight in stature, extremely protective when it came to personal space. To stand within arms' length of any male was tantamount to an insult or a challenge. The man they spoke with was heavily bearded and dressed in local garb, definitely in the 'too close for comfort' range. Han guessed he was either here to find something or to sell something and listened intently, old habit.

"... Fifty credits a gram... The best stuff you'll ever try..."

A spice peddler, he discerned a few moments later, trying to unload a shipment. Unfortunately, the best way to facilitate a deal was stay as far away from the main space ports as possible, and they were within a stone's throw here. Han was not at all surprised when the locals brushed him off. The dealer shrugged and moved on in search of another potential buyer.

"Thinking of making a purchase?" a deep and very feminine voice asked.

The Corellian glanced up. A tall, streaky blonde, garbed in a semi transparent bodysuit so snug he could make out every curve and every inch of her that set her apart from the other clientele, posed above him. Her hair was slicked back in a short looped braid, and her lips were an unnatural shade of red, darkest at the edges, and a shade lighter inside.

"The nervous types are the ones to avoid doing business with. Unless you're desperate," she amended. "I hope you're not. I haven't seen him before so I wouldn't be inclined to trust him."

"I wasn't inclined to trust him ever," Han assured her.

"You were interested. You were listening."

He gestured to the empty side of the booth. "Bored. My company had to go." Too late, he realized it sounded like an invitation. The woman was already sliding into the seat across from him and smiling.

"My company took off on me too," she explained, "and this is the only empty seat at a table not inhabited by types I'd rather not sit with."

Han made a surreptitious perusal of the other tables. The tavern was filled with locals, a handful of humans, and a handful of other species. There were a few empty seats actually, but he was the only human with extra seats. "Don't care for the natives?"

"I can't read them."

"Read them?"

"You know... like I can my own kind. Being a girl on a new world can be dangerous, you know?"

_Honey, dressed like that no one is going to mistake you for a girl, _Han thought, almost laughing out loud. But he didn't, because he did understand what she meant. Having grown up around a variegated mix of species, he knew, for instance, that when a Woostri started stroking its fur midway through a conversation, it meant it was extremely agitated or uncomfortable. They couldn't help it and it was hard not to notice. But if he'd never seen one before, he might have thought they were happy. He might have thought they were gussying themselves up just to impress him. However, seeing that he really wasn't in the mood for company, he warned her. "I could be a slave trader. I could be anything."

"You don't look it."

"You don't know that."

And she smiled again. "Are you really or are you just putting me on? I've always wondered what a slave trader looked like."

_Oh great_, Han thought. _Don't need this, not interested_, but the server had reappeared now that he had company, eager for more orders that might equal more tips.

"Would you like another, Sir?"

The woman tilted her chin toward his empty glass, the flame crescent of her mouth splitting apart. "I'll buy two of whatever he just had."

"Look lady, you don't have-"

"Hey." She withdrew a tiny purse from a pouch along the outside of her thigh. The outfit left little room for her to carry much else, certainly not a weapon. Using her fingertip to activate the seal, she withdrew a native credit voucher and set it down. "I'm taking up your space, right. It's the least I can do."

Han's irritation at being disturbed abated, slightly. A drink. Fine. "If you insist."

"I do."

He grinned for the first time since she'd appeared. Their drinks arrived within seconds and they chatted of nothing more than the latest news from the front and the New Republic. The woman, as it turned out, was a private pilot for well-to-do baron. The baron suffered from a rare form of seizures and hence could not get certified by any safety-minded bureau to fly a craft alone. As a result, she had loads of free time in the interim, days on end while he did business. She was saving to buy her own ship and go to the Core, to Balmorra. Her parents had left during the occupation. She was curious about the changes, excited about the re-establishment of a democratic government, about the rumours, about the new leaders.

Han filled her in, trying to sound like an everyday pilot who was very up to date on galactic politics, without giving away much else. He knew what was coming before long.

"I'm staying at a place not far from here," she whispered. "What do you say we go kill some time?"

Bold. Blunt. To the point. It was tempting, it really was. She smelled sweet and smiled at all the right moments, in all those ways that let a man know it would be good. Han knew her type, knew it would be. "I can't," he stated flatly.

"You have a girl waiting for you core-ward?" she sang. "Funny. You don't look the type to be attached."

Han gritted his teeth. "I have to meet my co-pilot. He's an ornery sort and trust me, he's not the type you want to keep waiting."

She slipped her hotel card into his palm. "Maybe later you'll change your mind. This is where I'm staying."

Han pinched it between his thumb and forefinger, pausing, then handed it back. "I'm not interested."

"Your loss captain," she whispered. "You won't find much else around here to keep you company."

With a final flutter of her lashes she sashayed her way across the bar. He watched appreciatively, as it was one of the few guilt-free pleasures to be had, then decided to stay a while longer after all and order one more drink.

Back Chapter 2


	2. Chapter 2

~Chapter 2~

It felt like hours passed before Leia's battered equilibrium informed her that they'd settled upside down. Her teeth felt as though someone had tried to knock them out and she ran her tongue around to make sure they were all still attached to her gums. Adrenaline surged with the knowledge that they were alive, but she resisted the urge to unclip herself, trying to steady her nerves first. The blood rushing to her head didn't help. She concentrated on identifying each part of her body and making sure it moved; fingers, toes, arms and legs.

"_We're all right. We're all right. We're all right._" Luke continued his breathless assurances. She must have gotten out that she was okay too, although she wasn't conscious of saying it.

Her brother unfastened his harness and flipped his legs to the ceiling floor with ease, a steady trick of momentary levitation preventing an imminent drop on his head. Then he caught her by the waist while she undid her own harness. The return to an upright position flooded her body with new pain, but other than an impending nasty case of full body whiplash and badly bruised shoulders from the straps, nothing screamed _critical_. Nothing was broken. Nothing was permanently damaged. Steadying herself against the bulkhead (she was fairly certain the pod was still rolling and pitching), she tried to take a step forward and stumbled to the right, discovering motor control and balance had abandoned her. Whatever she'd last eaten on the _Razion's Edge _threatened to do the same.

The escape hatch was jammed beyond repair, concave metal and plastics bunched together. Luke swiftly cut around it with his lightsaber, then kicked it out. Leia managed to hang on just long enough to stagger past him and be sick. Then she stretched out on the ground, concentrating on breathing in and out as slowly as possible. The ground tipped and whirled beneath her, the rotation of the planet on its axis near earthquake proportions at first, then slower, slower...

"Those last few rolls were real killers," Luke agreed. Then he said, "Oh, wow."

"Wow?" Begging the nausea and sense of being shell-shocked to subside, Leia forced herself to take a look at where they were. "Oh my..."

The behemoth giants of Endor, the most majestic and aged timber, would never hold a candle to the trees here. Here they towered well over a four hundred meters, their rich mallow color resplendent in the blurry sun permeating the clouds. The source of their 'wows' was this particular giant's root system. Rather than grow down into the earth, they stretched upwards, using the trees around them as leverage so that each massive root system scaled all of the trees surrounding it. The roots evolved into thick lattices, stretching from one tree to another. They were less dense the higher up the trees they went, but at ground level where they were most thickly entwined, they formed a natural fortress, a well-muscled buttress.

Her cursory review of the planet offered her the odd name of Hmumfmumf, though the description in the datafiles didn't do them justice.

"I have no idea what this is," Luke called from the other side of the capsule. "This thing..."

Leia climbed to her feet gingerly, decided the spins were abating, and hurried around. Two tentacles were draped curled around the nose of the escape pod and leaking some type of clear fluid. The paint beneath where they rested was dissolving in a multicoloured swirl, dripping down the starboard side. Half of the creature's body (what she guessed was its body) lay pinioned beneath the escape pod. The glutinous organism's tentacles were longer than even Chewbacca from head to toe.

"Look what's happening to the hull," he exclaimed, back stepping a safe distance and curling his nose back in disgust. "What is it?"

Leia massaged her strained neck. "I don't know," she told him, wondering how they were going to pry it off the escape pod so that they could repair it. Their primary thruster lay several meters away in two pieces. The pungent odour or illerium vapours stung her nose, though she couldn't see the leak. _Well, it'll be okay_, she reassured herself. _Luke and you will figure out how to fix_...

The absurd thought checked itself swiftly.

Escape pods were designed to land, not take off, and even then their landings weren't known for being all that smooth. Additionally, her brother had just slashed a meter long opening in the hull. Still trembling in the aftermath of the crash, Leia flipped the implications over in her mind and coughed out a choice Rogue Squadron expletive.

Luke turned full circle, gesturing to the roots, to the forests, the battered escape pod. "What do you think?"

"We're stuck in the middle of nowhere."

"It could have been worse."

She grimaced angrily in response. "Right. Our atoms could be raining down on Baskarn with the rest of the space dust."

Luke reached over and set a hand on her shoulder. "But we're _not_." He flashed a smile. "We rained down whole, after all."

"Raining, crashing... What about the shuttle?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I hung on to her as long as I could and the detonators didn't go off as long as I was guiding the shuttle. But she wasn't on autopilot. She should have hit the tops of the forests and blown. It probably happened before we crashed and..." He faltered.

A wave of outside distress washed over her. "And what?"

Looking vaguely uncomfortable, Luke turned to stare over his shoulder at the impenetrable wall of roots. "I just realized. I switched us over from autopilot – _that's _when we heard the reset notification tones. I was under orders to leave us on the pre-automated flight plan for our descent and I didn't, and we... well we wouldn't have heard the tones otherwise"

"Oh." What he was saying dawned on her more fully. "_Oh, no_."

Over a thousand people were stationed at the base. Many of the New Republic's most seasoned pilots were there, preparing for the same mission. "Then we weren't the primary target," she murmured, shivering. "The detonators were set to go off when she entered the hanger."

"They were probably looped in to the landing sequences," he added grimly. "Or had some sort of default system set up in case I switched to manual. Whoever rigged her probably didn't think I'd switch over, or thought we wouldn't recognize the tones."

Leia swallowed tightly. Luke didn't, as a rule, trust any pre-set system to fly as well as he did, nor did he relish the notion of not being in control. That small act of habitual disobedience had saved their lives and potentially the lives of a thousand others. At this very second in time, had her brother obeyed, they would have been arriving at the hanger. They never would have known. "Who gave you those orders?"

"Intelligence," he said quietly.

"That doesn't make any sense," she said, feeling numb with dread. Then again, those sorts of orders weren't completely uncommon. Many base commanders ordered all crafts to come in on pre-automated flight plans, particularly in enemy territory. It was strictly a precaution. Flight plans were constructed to avoid Imperial patrols, sensors, and the vicinity traffic. However they were usually given to novice pilots, _not _former Rogue Squadron Commanders.

"It's not worth our synapses worrying about it now. We need to find out how far we are from the base. We need to figure out what we're going to do."

There was some discussion over whether or not they should launch a distress call and wait. Unfortunately, they were in an Imperial Sector on an untamed planet. If they were lucky the Baskarn base would pick up the call first. If they weren't, none of the possibilities boded well. They Imperials would not only have two of their most wanted in custody, but they would probably be _very _interested in what had brought the two of them to Baskarn. Compromising the security of the base was out of the question.

The urge to start moving, to switch over to active mode, finally kicked in. Hurrying back inside the pod, Leia unlocked the storage compartments and stood back to allow the contents to spill at her feet. In one of the survival packs she found the much-needed mini-console, the survey datapad.

Fortunately, like all New Republic vessels, the escape pod was equipped with the most up do date survival gear. While Luke fiddled with the console she took a quick inventory of their provisions: One Durafab tent, two sleep rolls, two medkits, a Hydro-extractor, a self-charging cookpad set, luma glowrods, space tape, a multi-tool, syntherope, two canteens, extra coveralls, their cloaks, data pads and comlinks. In the plastipac food pouch she found K-18 ration bars, carbosyrup, a bag of insta-meal, and stim tea. There was also the tarine tea and NSFS food blocks she'd swiped from the galley.

When she was done she tugged off her flight jacket, tunic, fatigues, then her bodysuit, stuffing the jacket and bodysuit back in a pack. Baskarn was hot and humid - she was going to melt under three layers of clothes. She drew her fatigues and tunic back on and tied two steelhide belts around her waist. Then she grabbed a DL-44 blaster for each holster. The smaller holdout blaster she always carried was tucked in place under her tunic.

She re-emerged and handed him one of the other belts and a blaster. There'd been little information on the planet; being prepared for all forms of lethal ecology seemed prudent. Gesturing anxiously toward the datapad, she pressed for an answer. "How bad does it look?"

"Could be worse."

"Worse than..." she prompted. "Well?"

"Guess."

"_Luke_."

"Sorry, I'm just holding off on destroying that never-ending cheerful optimism of yours."

_Great. I'm cheerfully optimistic_. "Seriously, Luke how..."

"I figure seven or eight days. Two-hundred and sixty-three kilometres."

Leia sighed. It was better than a thousand, but not as good as twenty.

They set about covering the pod with camouflage netting and finished packing. By the time the tasks were completed she'd done a few mental calculations and determined that seven or eight days would be at a breakneck and grueling pace. She mentally amended seven or eight to eleven or twelve or thirteen and decided self-aggrandizing optimism was truly one of her brother's faults. Cheerful was not the same thing at all.

"Just pretend we're back on Mimban," Luke kept saying. "Or any of those other insane places we've been stranded on."

Quite a few came to mind. "You're jinxing us," she accused. "Is there some galactic law I don't know about that says we have to crash and wind up lost in the middle of nowhere every time we go anywhere together?"

He ignored the commentary and picked up one of the packs, grunting under its weight as he straightened the straps around his shoulders. "What do we know about this place anyway?"

"Not much," she admitted, straining to put on her own pack. Obviously he'd deleted every fact she'd relayed to him over dinner that night. "The planet's only sentient beings, native ones, are a simian species called Yrashu, green and supposedly harmless. And those trees are called Hmumfmumf."

"_Hmumfmumf_," Luke repeated, incredulous.

"I didn't name them. Climate listed as temperate jungle-swamp. There should be a scout station at the bottom of the mountain. Gravity's a little lighter than normal. Now, how are we going to get through this fifty story root mat?"

Luke detached his lightsaber from his belt again. "We won't be a big hit with the environmental groups if there's any around."

She took a long last look at the sky overhead. "I'd say it's the least of our worries."

* * *

The midday sun blazed high overhead by the time they reached another clearing. At least, it _looked _like it was midday. Luke had assumed it was late morning when they first entered the Hmumfmumf forest seven hours ago, which should have made it late afternoon or early evening on most worlds. Leia said she thought a day here was thirty-two hours, if she remembered correctly. There was no telling.

The survival pack was a dead weight across his shoulders, and his flight suit was soaked with sweat. He judged both himself and his sister to be in good shape, but at this rate they were going to be in the best shape of their lives by the time they reached the base. Either that or their arms would fall off. He swung the pack off and sank to his knees, then clasped his hands together behind his back, trying to will feeling back into the abused limbs, drew them back around and rubbed his elbows. Leia slumped facedown in the grass beside him.

The dense forest, compounded by their inability to move quickly, was making him feel claustrophobic. Luke had spent a lot of time on some strange worlds over the past few years, but he'd never gotten used to not being able to see for miles around him, as he'd been able to on Tatooine. He always felt safer that way. On Tatooine, only the Tusken Raiders could camouflage themselves in the wide expanse of sand. You could race for hours in a T-70 and see nothing, no one, not even a womprat or a sandcrawler. He'd spent his teenage years doing just that, avoiding his uncle and his excuses. Deep space was much the same. It was just a different place to run away.

He decided to relax and dig out something to eat, think about what lay ahead, not about blatant sabotage and the question of _who_, about the fact that even if the New Republic launched a search for them, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. If the shuttle had exploded on impact, the concussion bomb would have blasted a crater several hundred meters wide, easily detectable by any ship flying overhead. Still, they'd be sifting through the ashes for days looking for human remains before they realized they hadn't been on it. Chances that sensors at the base had detected their pod were slim. Either way, a search party wouldn't be launched any time soon. He dug out two ration bars, tossed one to his reclining sister, and grabbed a collapsipack of carbosyrup.

"I wish I knew how far the forest extends," Leia grumbled, rolling over and brushing sticky tendrils of hair out of her eyes. "If I'd known memorizing the cartography would be so helpful, I would have."

Luke agreed, chewed his ration bar and studied the glen. It was larger than where they had crashed, but he had an uncanny feeling that this wasn't a natural break in the forest. There didn't seem to by any plausible reason for it, and with the looming giants it was akin to looking up the sky from the bottom of a well. Large, colourful variegated butterflies flitted from side to side, but other than small insects there were no other discernible signs of life, none he could sense through the Force. Still, he felt the tingling of his curiosity, a beckoning nearby. Puzzled, for he had no idea what it was, he thought aloud; "This clearing is strange. Something feels…wrong."

"Someone wants us and possibly the entire base dead, and according to your dead reckoning in la-la land, we're only ten days away. Of course everything feels wrong." she joked half-heartedly, pulling the survey datapad from her pocket to verify their position. Her expression was one of dismay. "We're supposed to be heading straight through to the far end."

"Have something to eat and drink first," he encouraged.

She took a long draught of carbosyrup and wiped her chin on her sleeve. Then she chewed anxiously on her bottom lip and she shook her head slowly, as though suddenly cognizant of something she didn't believe. "Luke, we re-wired and safety checked every single Lambda-class shuttle. None of them were sanctioned for fleet usage until after the modifications were complete. In order for those detonators to be installed that way..."

"This was an inside job." That had already occurred to him as well.

"It must be. But security's so tight, the New Republic Intelligence has set up so many precautionary measures. You'd know that from your work with them. However they bypassed security... Did you recognize the Twi'lek who ran the diagnostic scan before we left?"

"No." He hadn't sensed any deceit from him either. "I don't think he knew anything though. He wasn't hiding anything from me."

"Luke," she affirmed shaking her head, "Even if we get to the base as soon as possible, whoever did this will know it didn't work by then. We can't even warn them."

"Whoever did this knew took great the pains to make sure we carried in the detonators on a cargo craft. Meaning they didn't know where the base was, just that we were going there. The base is strong enough to defend itself against any full scale attack," he reassured her.

"Or so we hope," she pointed out.

"That's all we can do now."

She frowned over his shoulder. "They still might have tracked us."

"I know." He followed her gaze to the burrowed out coppice, frowning too at his handiwork. If anyone had come out of hyperspace behind them and seen them eject, if they'd traced the escape pod down, they were leaving a beautifully marked trail.

They were on the other side of the glen within minutes and on the verge of imprisoning themselves in the cursed roots again when Luke's attention was drawn to an almost unnatural occurrence at the base of one of the trees. At first he thought it was a trick of the eye, and he touched it to make sure. It was virtually indistinguishable from the forest wall – it was obviously intended to be – unless you were to step up close to it. It had been hand crafted, a nigh on facsimile of tree bark, but out of metal, not wood. No sensors were visible, nor was there any sign of life, but it definitely was a _door_. He located the entrance pad just above it and pressed, but nothing happened. "You think this is an old one of ours?"

Leia was equally dumbfounded. "If we've had any satellite bases here that we abandoned, I've never heard about them."

"I want to check it out." He jigged the pad a few more times, but to no avail. Then he nudged her aside and gave the door a fierce shove. It refused to budge.

"Try pulling toward you," she told him.

Stepping back, he mentally shoved the door as hard as he could from the other side. With a loud crack it lurched against the tree. Leia produced a glowrod, and Luke lay down on the ground and hung his head over the lip, easily recognizing the old-fashioned lift chute. The lift waited idly about twenty meters down below, but there were rungs cut into the side, he supposed for times like these when it wasn't operational. It would be a simple climb down. "You don't have to come with me. You can stay with the packs up here."

"No way. If you're going to get yourself in trouble I'd rather know sooner than wonder up here."

He swung around and dropped his legs, scaled quickly down, then directed his light Leia's way. When she was near enough he reached for her waist but she tightened her grip and told him she had it. Sighing, (for often these days it seemed chivalry was tantamount to insult where his sister was concerned), he turned to the room behind him.

The facility had been constructed underground, far below the towering Hmumfmumf trees. Luke took a few deep breaths to test the air and sneezed. Stale, musty, but there was enough oxygen, there were no insalubrious odours, no toxic moulds. Even in the dim light he could see the thick coating of dust. There were holocharts and blasters strewn about, as well as rusted stormtrooper helmets and gear. What had once been someone's dinner rested on a desk. Beside it lay a smashed console. Several shadowy walkways beckoned from each corner, beyond which were pitch-black halls.

The light from his glowrod revealed Imperial insignias everywhere. Faded glyphs read _Korriban_.

"I should have known," Leia sighed, quickly looking around. "But there was never any reported Imperial activity on Baskarn. Not once in all the years we've had a base here."

That fact didn't appear to have the desired effect of making the insignias fade away into oblivion. A chill ran down Luke's spine. The Empire had established near a hundred clandestine operations on different worlds, even occasionally shared planets unknowingly with the Alliance. To the best of his knowledge, however, it had never been the other way around. That meant either the Alliance had neglected to do a thorough scan of Baskarn beforehand or... _or _it had been deserted years before they arrived. The latter seemed more likely, since the Empire would not have hesitated to destroy their forces. He still wasn't picking up any signs of life. "It's not in use."

"Abandoned?" she wondered aloud.

"Does the name _Korriban _mean anything to you?"

"Korriban?" Leia furrowed her brow, wracking her memory. "No. Wait. There's a planet on the other side of the Outer Rim by the same name. It was Palpatine's retreat. " Rubbing her hands together, she ventured. "Remember what Wedge told us about that abandoned ship in the Pakuuni System."

Luke nodded, remembering Antilles' chilling recollection of a ship he'd once boarded in space, its pilot long dead and cargo stolen. He said he'd never believed a ship could be haunted until then. _This _place felt haunted. The lingering sensation of death was so strong he felt as though he were a bystander at an execution, being prevented to do anything but watch in morbid fascination.

"I don't think they abandoned this base," she explained hesitantly, "I feel almost as if…"

"They died here," he finished.

"Yes. That's it."

"I was just thinking the same thing." He crept to one of the doorways, and then purposely stomped his feet. There was no need to sneak through an empty base. "I think we should stick together in here."

They were right.

They found the first body in an office down the first hall. The man lay curled in a fetal position beside his desk, a blaster burn visible in the back of his tattered uniform. He was no more than a skeleton under his clothes, the bones of his fingers still clenched around an outdated model of comlink. The scant light of the beam cast a macabre glow on the scene, and Luke couldn't suppress the grim sense of foreboding. Something terrible had happened here.

The living areas were complete with personnel quarters and storage facilities. The personnel quarters were fit for kings, full of teal furniture and dishes made of Camarian crystal. Crates of all sizes in the storage facilities were stocked with a collection of goods and foodstuffs from around the galaxy: T'ill-t'iil and Farberrie liqueur, containers of Carababba T'bac, bolts of Koolach silk, ornamental tapestries, aurodium ingots. The majority of the food goods were long past their expiration dates, many up to twenty years. There were even a few containers of sealed R'alla water. Luke didn't see any harm in pinching a few of those, tore the tab off one and drank greedily while he examined an ornately jewelled bottle. Dawnstar gems refracted a rainbow of colors across the walls when the glowrod's light hit them.

Leia took a bottle into her hands and ran her fingers lightly over the exquisite detailing. "This is wine from the Hapes System." She squinted at the label. "This vintage in particular was worth over ten thousand credits when I was growing up. The value's probably doubled by now."

"So either this place was a stronghold for smuggled goods too or the people that worked here were well rewarded." He couldn't help adding, "Can you imagine what Han would think if he saw this?"

"For all we know this was his regular cargo," she mused gracefully. A momentary flicker of sorrow peaked and waned, almost evading his perception. "I bet there's several hundred thousands worth of goods in here. I think it will make a great contribution to the funds for the New Republic."

Luke nodded. "We'll have to send a team back here when we get to the base."

The residential areas were without human remains but not the medcenter. Or, what Luke thought was the medcenter at first, but it was too large for such a small station. Skeletons lay dismembered in pairs and trios, moss covered bones; craniums, mandibles, ribs, shrouded with ragged cloth and so tangled only forensics could have put them back together and recreated a whole being. There were half a dozen laboratories that looked as if cyclones had ripped through them. The floors were covered with more smashed consoles, shattered view screens, biofeedback units, wires and tubes. Operating tables outfitted with restraints were upturned; life support systems were torn apart. A number of MD-4 droids, once suited for finite microsurgery, were heaps of tangled machinery and scrap metal now. Oddly, Luke noted that none of the security pads or retinal scanners appeared to have been tampered with.

"A research center," Leia said, after they'd entered the fourth such room. "Medical to an extent, but I don't think this place was meant to _help _anyone. I'd expect to find at least one bacta tank in here and why just surgical droids?" She brushed debris off a machine that had escaped destruction, pointed to the logo on the side. There were two rings juxtaposed over each other with 'G P' in each half. "Ever seen this before?"

"I don't think so."

"Geneering Products," she explained. "They manufactured pharmaceuticals – truth serums and other nasty stuff - for the Empire up until about three years before the Battle of Yavin. Then one day they up and vanished."

He kicked at an empty tray. An array of sharp scalpels was scattered across the floor next to it. "They went out of business?"

"Or they became a one-client corporation. At least that's what my father always suspected. With enough money they could have set up anywhere in the galaxy. Last I heard they were working on creating a bio-interface that would allow a computer and a sentient brain to communicate… sort of melding the mind with technology. Unfortunately, the high processing speeds tended more often than not to drive the subject insane. Unless they used cybernetic implants to compensate it didn't work and cybernetics aren't exactly cost effective. That's why Palpatine was always experimenting with primitive species, genetic manipulation. They were easier to control, not because he had a shred of civism when it came to his own species."

Thinking Leia sounded very up-do-date on the Imperial research, Luke asked, "Could what they were doing here have been related to cloning?" He didn't think this was a cloning facility. He'd yet to see any of the cylindrical tanks he'd read about in the Alliance's datafiles. Palpatine's cloning facilities were legendary.

"No. They have everything they need to type bollen patterns, brain waves, so I would assume it was related to mind control." Leia's usually warm brown eyes narrowed, and her voice dropped to a hiss. "It makes me sick. We only know about a fraction of the biowarfare laboratories… technological research centers. I've never actually taken a tour of one. The only reason we ever had an inkling these places existed was because no matter how hard the Empire tried they couldn't siphon off funds without catching the attention of the Senate. Taxpayers money always went missing. Millions of credits went into the creation of the _Death Star_ – we knew something big was underway four years before we had confirmation. Shortly before the Senate was disbanded we were preparing to request a formal inquiry and review of the Empire's accounts. Palpatine took care of that rather expediently."

Luke reflected for a moment on the destruction of the _Obsidian_. The Alliance had destroyed the research platform shortly before the Battle of Endor. At the time, he had thought it would have been a wiser move to simply capture it and study the research that had been performed there, but Leia had been dead set against it. Agents had forewarned the Alliance that all subjects had been destroyed before they arrived in the system - it wasn't going to be a mercy or rescue mission. She had given an impassioned speech to high command and said, point blank, that the Rebellion wouldn't profit from medical experimentation on innocent victims, that she would resign first. No one had dared object, and two days later the platform had been vaporized. In retrospect, face to face with one of the dreaded facilities, he found himself agreeing with her.

"But things didn't work out according to Palpatine's plans here," he said. "It looks like whoever they kept here fought back and won…"

"Or Palpatine sent down a squad to destroy his own facility because they knew too much."

"Or that," he replied, although he felt it wasn't the truth.

They left the laboratories and headed back into the labyrinth of subhallways. The facility was deceptively large and tricky to maneuver through with glowrods. The docking bay held four old SoroSuub shuttles, all of which were nothing more than scorched Trimantium shells. They'd been blown up from the inside out, either on purpose, or they'd been outfitted to self-destruct when they were tampered with. The size of the docking bay told Luke they were directly beneath the clearing they'd crossed; if he were to dig away the earth from above, he knew he'd hit the roof.

On the other side of the docking bay evidence of whoever had slain the members of the base presented itself. Ten identical cells, spaced an arms width apart, were set on either side of a narrow passageway littered with the rubble of blasted Detainment droids and more skeletons. Although the floors were coated in several decades' worth of dust, Luke could easily imagine the fresh pools of blood creeping across the halls, into the cells. He knelt beside a set of remains, galvanized by the clean cuts directly through the bone. What looked like a femur lay in four pieces. Beside it lay several vertebrae. Whoever had annihilated these men hadn't just wanted to kill them and despite his distaste for the Empire, he couldn't help but feel sickened by the cruelty indicated. At the same time, his senses began twitching as a form of yearning excitement catching him off guard. "I can only think of a few weapons that would do this to a body easily," he told his sister.

Leia leaned in and steadied herself on his shoulder. "You don't think a Jedi did this? A vibroblade might have too."

His hand reflexively reached for his own lightsaber, turning it round in his hand as far it could go without detaching it from his belt. "I don't know, but…" The area was an epicentre for the negativity he'd been sensing. "Think about it. We know this place is old… older than us even. Maybe Palpatine kept some of them alive…maybe…whatever happened here..."

A vague stirring in the Force broke him off mid-sentence, tugged at him like a psychic tractor beam. He stood and took three steps into one of the empty cells. The ceiling was low enough that he could reach it on flat feet, the measurements across the same. The claustrophobic he been experiencing in the forests was but a shadow of what he felt inside the cell.

"Can you feel that?" Leia whispered.

He experienced a flash of helplessness, outrage… _fear_. Fear so paralyzing he forgot he could simply step back into the passageways. Needles of cold terror pricked his flesh.

"Can you _feel _that?" she whispered again, flashing her glowrod in both directions. "Luke, can we get out of here please? I don't like this."

"In a second." He gave his body a thorough head to toe shake, felt the sensations dissipate. He'd investigated enough places on Coruscant - most of Palpatine's private chambers, suites, prisons, even a museum of desecrated Jedi belongings – to know suffering lingered as vibrantly in the present as it did in the past. Hatred and sorrow scarred deeply. He exited and checked the next cell down. Its emotional vibrations were no where near as strong, though the same trace of misery beckoned to him, as though the cells and the stories they held were starving for audience.

Then his light caught several disabled Interrogation Droids resting in the shadows. Leia shuffled next to him and gasped. He turned the light away from it, but she grabbed his hand and redirected the beam back onto the appalling apparatus. Try as he might he could not block the distress and terror the small form next to him projected into his consciousness, but somehow he found himself staring too, trying to imagine what the various appendages and glinting tools had been intended to do. Privately, he had never been able to believe the Imperials would have used such a barbaric device on a woman, let alone girl, and though he'd seen a few of the IT-0 models in his time, he'd never seen one like this. The bitter taste of bile was thick at the back of his throat. She wasn't imagining, and he could feel her body shaking where his forearm touched her side.

"I want to get out of here," she whimpered. "Please, please can we go now?"

* * *

Leia crouched on her haunches and pressed her face into her arms. Luke was standing nearby, pretending to look elsewhere but she could feel that he was watching her. The fresh air cleansed away the moroseness which had settled underground, but it didn't help her memories, didn't erase the images of decades old corpses in the underground necropolis, the suffering and unimaginable horrors. The flashback to her own panic and nightmares had passed now, and though she suspected Luke thought she was crouching and remembering, it couldn't have been further from the truth.

She was thinking about Luke's comments to her the night he'd made her dinner.

_You'll be vulnerable to people who will want to manipulate you... exploit you._

_Like here? Like this_?

Luke believed the station had held Jedi, and if it had, history tended to repeat itself didn't it? Her mother must have feared for them before they were born. She must have feared that Vader would find them, hence they were separated and hidden. The purges were already underway when they were born. The Jedi had nearly been driven to extinction. Did she know she would have to give them up? If she'd known what her husband would do to his daughter and son - would she have even wanted them to be born? Was this the sort of fate she'd feared?

Her eyes studiously skirted the area again. She half expected there to still be a lone survivor from the base waiting to ambush them, half expected an Imperial squadron to drop from above and attack them. Her nerves were frayed and her composure was shaken, and she prayed Luke would stay away a little longer. If he ambled over and smiled too kindly, the compulsion to start babbling and babbling – tell him everything before she had a chance to talk to Han would overcome her…

_Han_…

It occurred to her he would learn about the _Razion's Edge _demise before long.

Luke, oblivious to her silent pleas, squatted next to her. "Hey," he said softly.

"Hey, yourself." She lifted her head, and tried to smile. "I'm having an absolutely terrible day. How about you?"

"If was going just fine until about-" He checked his chrono. "-Nine hours ago."

"Mine too. And you know what I just remembered. Han will be back this week. We'll be miss-"

His mouth slipped readily into a sympathetic frown. "Leia, don't do that to yourself. He's not going to assume anything. He knows you're with me and that I wouldn't let anything happen to you. I'm sure of that." Then, magically understanding that her distress was multi-levelled and complicated, he stretched his arm around her shoulder, saying, "You know, I can give you all the bad clichés about lovers' quarrels or I can point out that the New Republic will hold the news back to avoid a media blitz. Maybe we'll be at the base before he's even contacted. It's not worth the grief today."

Leia pushed herself up, wincing at his choice of words. The term 'lovers' quarrel' evoked images of lovers twined together, seeking forgiveness, saying 'I love you'. It didn't apply to her and Han. Not anymore. Two people who hadn't been with five parsecs of each other in four months were no longer lovers. She didn't think they would even qualify as friends.

She caught Luke watching her expectantly. _Luke has a point. They might not tell him now. Enough is enough, Leia. You can wallow in self-pity or pull it together_. "You're right. So...Where did they go? They killed everyone inside and then… where can you go in the middle of nowhere?"

"Come see this," he instructed.

Luke led her behind station's door, behind the trunk, to a path. Instead of being carved through the roots, this one had been created by redirecting the roots as they grew so that they naturally created a canopied archway between the trunks. The most skilled horticulturist on any planet would have been awed. They reminded her of the Mullanite Sculptures; artists spent years redirecting vine growth to from animals, objects. Here it was less creative and more of a necessity, though Luke's arms were _very _impressed, or so he kept saying.

The trail was well kept, although there were no footprints apparent to tell them who took care of it or used it. In under an hour they hit a wall of sheer rock, over which the roots had ably climbed up and around. The trail split into two, running along the base. Luke swung to the right, started jogging, and then broke into a full out run. By the time she'd caught up to him he was inspecting a deep crevasse of split stone. Then he squeezed his body through the narrow entrance and disappeared into the darkness. A burst of fuzzy light bathed the entrance moments later. Leia followed.

"Someone was here," he told her. "I can feel him."

Together they surveyed the disarray under the light of scattered candles. The cave, although it appeared someone had once lived here, did not look as though it had been inhabited for years. Crates similar to those they'd found inside the old base were piled against one wall, turned into shelving units. There was an old stove, ingeniously created from scraps of metal and an old generator. Next to the stove was a low table with heavy woven mats set around it, ripped up carpeting from the base. The corners of the room were each covered with long embroidered tapestries. The occupant had obviously sought to civilize his dwelling, make it feel homey. If one ignored the sloping ceilings the illusion almost worked. A sleeping area was partitioned behind one of them, and in another corner a funnel had been driven into the cracks of the wall. A storage container was positioned beneath it, though it was dry as bone. In the middle of the table rested a lightsaber nearly identical to her brother's.

"I was right," Luke murmured, downcast. "But he's been dead for years."

The largest tapestry was an epic scene of rivers and mountains done in pastels over a fresco of black and grey. Thousands upon thousands of slashes had been cut in rows, top to bottom, until the artist's image disappeared in the rips if you stood too close to it. She traced her fingers over the tears, wondering if it they represented days, weeks. If it had been decades since the station was in use, she couldn't imagine how lonely whoever had lived here must have been.

Abruptly she marched over to the curtains and drew them back. She didn't want to see another body or skeleton today but if she was near one she wanted to know _where _it was. She folded back the embroidered quilt covering the bed, brushing away dirt. _Tomuon_ wool she noted, a priceless piece of art handmade by the Askajian weavers. They'd had a similar one in her home when she was growing up. Long white hairs were strewn across the pillow. There was a pile of clothing: a threadbare cloak and tunic.

Maybe he had vanished, the same as Ben Kenobi. She thought sometimes that she'd seen it happen, seen Ben's cloak pooling to the floors, bodiless, formless. It had all happened so fast. She remembered Luke telling her though, distraught, inconsolable even, for the trip to Yavin IV. She pictured him, barely more than a gawky teenager, staring out the view port.

_He didn't fight back… he dropped his arms..._

_He saved you… saved us_, she had told him then. _He did what he had to do_…

"The same thing happened when Master Yoda died."

She snapped out of her reverie. "Is it significant?"

"It means that whoever was here was very powerful… a good Jedi. Maybe he was a master too. His presence is still strong…" He turned on his heel and crossed his arms. "It'll be dark soon. We could stay the night here."

_A tomb_, she thought. This was essentially a tomb, but it was better than the shelter or the tunnel. "Okay. But if any other skeletons turn up under all this junk I'm leaving. I've had all I can take for one day."

"Deal."

* * *

A more thorough search told them little about the Jedi who'd once lived there, other than that in his spare time he'd enjoyed whittling the Hmumfmumf roots into bowls, spoons, mugs, animals (which she didn't recognize) and humanoid figures whose essences, while they must have meant something to him, weren't captured well enough in the grooves and curves for her guess if they were male or female. The station was the source of most of his belongings, although, while he had two crates of Camarian bowls and glasses, he ate off the ones he'd made himself. He'd cut candleholders into the wall so that the room was bathed in a honey glow when they were all lit. It was almost civilized.

Luke managed to get the old stove working so that they didn't need their cookpad, and dumped the contents of one of their NSF rations into an old pot. While their dinner simmered away he selected an untouched bottle of wine and held it up to the light, swishing the amber contents around so that the sediments scattered. Her brother rarely consumed alcohol, but the price tag she'd quoted earlier had apparently piqued his interest. His eyes twinkled boyishly, then he winked. "Ten thousand credits a bottle? Were you serious?"

"Go ahead," she encouraged mischievously. "You probably won't get another chance in your lifetime."

He popped the seal, tipped his head back and took a generous swallow. Immediately his face flushed and he started coughing.

"It isn't water," she laughed.

The spasmodic coughing tapered off into gulps and wheezes. "My mistake," Luke said, trying to cover his embarrassment by taking a tiny, respectable sip. His face was turning trig-berry red and his eyes ran with tears.

Leia kept laughing.

"Let's see _you _try it," he scowled. "Being the cultural elitist and all…"

"No thank you," she said smoothly. "If I'm such a cultural elitist then I've had it before. It's a little… dry for my taste."

"You're bluffing," he accused, wiping his eyes. "The way you describe your father, I find it hard to believe he would've wasted money on fine alcohol."

"You've never heard of diplomatic gifts? Tax free gestures of good will?"

"Also known as 'bribery.' You're still bluffing," he decided.

"Well maybe Lando gave me a bottle once…"

He paused. "For free?"

"Stranger things have happened," she nodded.

"Or he still feels guilty."

She took a deep breath in and out through her nose. When it came to gifts from Lando it always came back from that. "Or that."

Luke took one more sip before resealing the bottle. "This is so strange," he murmured. "Our ship is in a million pieces somewhere and we end up finding all this. I don't know why I bother looking. I should just wait for accidents to steer me in the right direction."

"I'd hardly call an assassination attempt an accident," she corrected. "It's the furthest thing from it."

"Then… we'll call if fate."

Fate? Maybe, but she hoped not. In her experience fate rarely tended to be kind. Still, it was absurd to sit on a dirt floor and prepare to dine off the finest crystal in the galaxy. It was absurd to have crashed and discovered an Imperial research station. It was absurd that her brother had spent six months searching for Jedi or remnants of the Jedi, only to find evidence of one here on Baskarn. The chain of events rippled with an eerie consonance that she didn't like.

Leia sat and stretched, dropping her chin to her chest, then back, side to side, leaned forward and grabbed her ankles, trying to ward off the stiffness settling in. That had been the one good thing about moving all day. Tomorrow morning she was to feel like an Imperial Walker had trampled her. If she could just take a long hot bath…

_Water_, she remembered. They needed water for tomorrow. She found the hydro-extractor and started it running under Luke's critical eye. He probably could have dismantled it and reassembled it in his sleep. Thanks to his upbringing, he was something of a whiz when it came to any style of moisture vaporizer or water extractor, and the primitive SoroSuub brand contraption was about as simple as they got.

Throughout dinner they spoke meditatively of the _Razion's Edge_, of the near disaster. Beyond theorizing there was little they could do. Imperials, Leia insisted. Who else? Her brother wasn't so sure, though his attention was fixated on the elusive origins of the Korriban station. He hoped fervently that more than one person had survived, that if they were heading in the right direction they might find them. There might be Jedi here on Baskarn. He told her that mortality within the Force was unclear, transient in nature, misunderstood by most, and that the death of any Jedi left its scars in the Force, created a disturbance in the natural order of light and darkness. That was why the cave bore such an extraordinary signature of wisdom and strength, of purity, of the Light side.

_And if the Light side left its mark_… "What about a Jedi who's turned to the Dark side?" she couldn't help asking.

Luke stirred his spoon around the rim of his bowl absentmindedly. "That's different."

"Dangerous?"

"It can be," he admitted. "Evil contaminates… Yoda told me once that places where the Dark side was overpowering were often guarded by protectorates of the innocent, bound until death to prevent trespassing. He called them 'Dark Force nexuses."

"Is that what he was doing? Wherever he was?"

Luke's eyes lit up as though a fact formerly wrinkled in his brain had been smoothed over. "I always thought he was hiding, but come to think of it, he may have been guarding one. I mean I've seen one, once, near where he lived. I don't know why he would have chosen to live so near it."

"What was it like?"

"Ahh…Seductive, sinister, yet somehow it's not real, you're your own worst enemy inside of one. Whatever you fear, whatever you don't want to confront, will be what ultimately finds you."

They looked at each other for a long time before she understood. "What found you?"

For a second she didn't think he would answer. Then he said, "That I had the potential to be like _him_… It was a test. I failed."

"But you're _not _like him," she replied earnestly. "You never could be."

"I inherited my strengths and my weaknesses from him. I have to be constantly aware of that, remind myself all the time how easy it would be to take the next step, why I can't ever let that happen."

This was a side of Luke she hadn't seen in a very long time. "You won't," she assured him. "I have faith in you. I know you won't."

"That's nice to hear," he murmured unconvincingly. "I just… All of the Jedi are gone. I have no one to help me figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. I feel… I feel like someone dropped me in the middle of a battle, never having flown before, and told me take over. I don't know what I'm doing. I still have so much to learn. Yoda always said I needed to unlearn but how do you keep unlearning and learning all at once? There's no end to it."

She considered it, nodded. "That's… paradoxical, but it's the foundation for wisdom, isn't it? To never assume you know all there is to know, to remember you never cease learning, to be cautious. To unlearn is to… I don't know, not let yourself get too set in your ways…"

Her brother looked pained, brushed back unruly locks of sandy hair and cleared his throat. "But… I'm afraid of making a mistake, making the same sort of mistakes Ben did, my father did."

Leia thought it strange to hear her brother's voice lacking its usual confidence, strange to consider that Luke, who came across the majority of the time as wizened and self-assured, had doubts. In her mind he was afraid of nothing – he'd had the courage to face Vader after all. And as well as Jedi he was a pilot. Pilots viewed fear as the first sign of burnout; it was as fatal in a battle as a malfunctioning ship. The Emperor's fear driven campaign had rendered the many worlds under his control as helpless as infants. Fear in a Jedi, she knew, could lead to the Dark side, but overcoming fear was also considered a critical phase of their training. Fear in the mind of any individual was like a weed, growing rampant until it choked out logic and reason; it led to apathy, to the inability to act, to the inability to be decisive when it was necessary. When he fell to his pedagogical moods Luke was fond of spouting such truisms.

"I think you're cutting yourself short," she shrugged. "Making mistakes is one of those certainties in life. You _will _make them. Everyone does. In order to move forward we have to try. It's a risk we take."

"Point," he admitted, candidly. "But the consequences of my mistakes could be devastating."

"Then you will be wary, cautious." She paused, twisted the end of her braid around one finger. When had she started sounding so much like Bail? "We can't control the future. On the Inner Council I make decisions every day that I'm not sure of… that have as much potential for disaster as they do rewards. I have to trust that what I'm doing is right, brace myself for the likelihood it may not be at the same time."

Luke smiled, then laughed softly.

Her cheeks warmed. "I'm sorry. Is this coming out all wrong?"

"No, no. I was just thinking, Yoda found my philosophical side to be wanting on a good day. Maybe I should have listened to you a little more back then."

"Oh, don't be silly."

"You always do the right thing though. It's in your nature and you make it seem easy."

"I only try to follow my heart."

"Then you listen to it very well." He pushed himself up from the table. "I'm going to find facilities."

She watched him go then picked up a pipe nestled away in a cubby beside the table and sniffed it. It smelled faintly of spice… Now _there _was a novel way to pass hours alone. What would her brother think of that?

_You always do the right thing_.

"No I don't," she whispered to cave's spirit, if he was indeed listening.

Ever since she could remember she'd struggled to do the right thing. When she'd run for the Senate she'd refused her father's offer to appear publicly with her, refused to allow her position as a regent to influence voters and supporters. Taking up the Rebellion's cause had also been, in her heart, the right decision because she believed the Emperor's reign was corrupt, that left unchecked it would destroy the liberties most worlds had taken for granted under the Old Republic. In her years with the Alliance she had worked herself to bone, setting aside personal relationships and frivolous fun because if it failed everyone she'd known would have died in vain. She kept her private life discreet, she didn't act without weighing the repercussions, didn't involve herself in the petty power struggles of the New Republic. She kept her sights sharply focused on the future.

None of that mattered now. Being spared her father's and aunt's disappointment made her feel wretched on the inside, as for the first time in five years she'd had cause to be relieved they were no longer alive.

_How could you let this happen_? she asked herself daily.

Members of the ruling houses of Alderaan, did not, as a rule, behave as though they were raised in the gutters of Coruscant. Politicians did not have affairs with their business associates. Council members did not jeopardize their careers. Bail Organa's daughter certainly had had enough morals and values instilled in her since birth to know better than to fall into bed with the first man who tried to seduce her in order to pacify the gnawing ache in her chest that Han had left her with.

It seemed that the universe had been dealing her life from the bottom of the deck and now sought to further complicate it with its idea of a joke, a wild card.

"Oh look," it said to her. "Now that I've taken and taken from you, let me give you something in return, let me remind you how very human you are..."

* * *

_This time he and Ben were walking outside Yoda's home on Dagobah, the mists breaking for them, shadowy veils drawn apart with an otherworldly hand. "Surrendering to the Force means sacrificing our will to what needs to be done. We are a vagabond order, without homes, without families, without choices - fate and happenstance setting our direction for us. Lonely it is… but as we are taught from the very beginning, 'we are not to know the reason…"_

_"We are only to do," Luke finished. "Master Yoda was fond of reminding me."_

_Ben smiled. "Like so many before me, I too, lost the ability to choose my path of servitude. For all my years I repeated those words to myself daily. When a servant of the Force dies, he has two choices; to pass on to whatever lies beyond this world, or to linger - touch the distant part of our consciousness that hear them, offer us warnings and guidance. But ultimately he cannot refuse the call."_

_"You'll be gone soon," Luke replied._

_"Soon, but not yet, and you won't be alone. You will be watched, as you always have been, always will be…"_

_"Ben I have so many questions for you. I still need you…"_

_If his former mentor heard his desperation he paid no heed. "Luke, as you were so often prone to doing in your youth, you are once again looking to the future and not to the here and now. Sometimes we must accept that patience, waiting, the very things we are not inclined to do well, are as much doing as action."_

_"Patience, waiting," Luke murmured. "It's not so simple…"_

_"But it is. You're journey has just begun, and you have only begun to learn… there is no rush, nor are their limits other than the ones you create for yourself."_

_"What do you mean?"_

_"You know the answer Luke…"_

_"But I don't…_"

"Ben I don't…"

The half-dreamed, half-whispered words awoke him, and he found himself staring at the last of the candles they'd left burning before they went to bed. Like the others, it would soon be no more than a nub of yellow wax in the dirt, pooled into the indents like fingers.

_Ben_…

He felt inexplicably morose. It had been a long time since Ben had appeared to him. This had been a dream, the type he had had often, although nothing was substantial, nothing real beyond his doubts. Perhaps it was Ben, reaching out from wherever he was, or perhaps, as he feared, it was old conversations and experiences recycled by his subconscious because recently he'd been calling to him. After dinner he'd even meditated for a short time, seeking a connection to the cavern's former occupant.

He propped himself up on his elbow and peered over the dwindling flame. His sister slept soundly, two hands folded beneath her cheek, a ball of elbows and knees poking through the sides of her sleep roll, her skin pale in contrast to the tangle of dark hair around her. His first impulse was to wake her too, but he thought better of it. _Cute_, he thought. Asleep, she looked angelic, younger than she was, definitely _not _like a woman whose aim was more often than not lethal, not like the fuming spitfire that had raced around Hoth scaring the living daylights out of pilots, crew, and command alike.

Han had told him once that he pitied the idiots who wasted their time mooning over her from afar and that he could think of no more pathetic endeavour. While most men had been interested in discovering what made her tick, the Corellian wholeheartedly dedicated himself to discovering what ticked her off. Molten rock, he had said once, would probably react to her the way it did to liquid nitrogen: one touch and _ssssssss_. He'd said in jest as though neither he nor Luke had been one of those idiots, which they were… they all were really. She was a princess, she was a Rebellion hero, and she was beautiful. That she shielded herself so tenaciously made her more fascinating, and when she thanked you and meant it, smiled one of those dazzling smiles that always made his heart skip a beat, you were hopelessly lost and ready to do anything to have her smile at you like that again. Luke's heart, out of old habit, still skipped a little sometimes but he would never have admitted that to anyone, barely admitted it to himself.

Her accusations that night on the _Razion's Edge _had been running through his mind in his rare moments of private introspection. The more he thought about it the guiltier he felt. Once they had been close, as close as anyone ever really got to her, and although finding out they were siblings should have strengthened their bond, they had, he conceded now, drifted apart more than he wanted to admit. Moments where he felt like he really knew her – those instances where two people connecting affords one the brief sensation of being part of a whole – were far and few between. She tended to forgive him anything, but beyond that she rarely confided in him about things that bothered her, rarely asked for his help unless it had political or military grounds.

He wished she would talk about home more often. She spoke of her father, of their work, but not of silly moments and memories, the sort of stories that began with, _when I was little_...

The suicide statistics for off world Alderaanians were grim. Many made pilgrimages, _returnings _to the asteroid field that was all that remained, known as the Graveyard to spacers who passed near it. Some dispatched memory capsules with mementos and offerings to deceased loved ones; others simply veered their shuttles off course towards certain death. The Alderaanian Death Legion never ran out of applicants, willing to go to extreme measures to avenge the barbarity of their world's destruction. The planet's populace, once a society of pacifists had been transformed into the Alliance's most feared terrorist unit. Among those numbers, there was not one, save his sister, who had held her breath and watched, then breathed again knowing sixty billion people never would.

_Sixty billion people... Tarkin... his father_…

Yet she never wavered. Even when Han's fate hung in the balance, and weeks turned into months of dead end leads, the resilience he admired was stirred with the force of a hurricane. She never would have been elected the youngest member of the Imperial Senate if she were any different. Personally, Luke still had a hard time imagining that sort of focus at such a young age; he'd been so blindly obsessed with getting off his uncle's farm and into the Academy, not scheming to overthrow a Galactic government. Back then, his aspirations hadn't extended much further than becoming pilot like his father.

In one afternoon all that had changed.

Reality staked its claim so harshly - for himself and for his sister - that he'd begun to understand why Ben lied, and that was a bitter pill to swallow. Often he wished he could crawl back in time, back to when he didn't know so much, to when his heart didn't feel weighted down under truths and half-truths, malicious twists of fate he'd not foreseen in his future. For Leia, discovering the truth about whose daughter she was, having to face the darkest moments of her life with that knowledge - that was a version of hell he would never fully comprehend. Luke didn't know whether to spend his life waiting for her to heal before he tried to teach her, but he thought that teaching her, conversely, would start to help her heal.

_Patience and waiting, he thought…_

_...Patience and waiting_…

It was, he decided after checking his chrono, not worth trying to fall back asleep now. Carefully sliding back the coverings, he stood and stretched, then tip toed over to the low table and picked up the lightsaber again. Although it was lighter and the handle was engraved with a uniquely foreign ornamental decor, the general design was remarkably consistent with his weapon.

Outside, dawn approached, its watery grey light filtering through the limbs. Luke pressed the activation stud and held his breath. The blade ignited with a burst of white heat. It was in perfect condition still. Taking a deep breath, he let the full strength of the Force invigorate him and drive the stiffness from his limbs, then started moving through the first series of defensive poses. He wondered what sort of power source the Jedi had used to create a blade that color. If and when he made one for Leia, he thought, he could try to construct it lighter too, make the handle narrower to suit her hand. Her hands were so much smaller than his...

If and when Leia ever decided she was ready.

He switched from the defensive to offensive poses… _forward, block, parry_… The blade hummed louder and louder. From deep inside the cave he heard muffled yelp. He released the stud and hurried back in.

Leia was sitting bolt upright, very groggy and half-asleep. "What was that?" she demanded. "What happened?"

"Nothing," he murmured, setting the weapon back on the table surreptitiously. Then he reached out to light the remaining candles.

She covered her eyes and groaned.

He waited until the last of her sleep induced stupor faded away before saying, "It's ah, morning." Then he decided to try a cheerful approach, marching purposely to the mess of strewn gear. "Would you like tea?"

Most of the fingers covering her eyes dragged away. "Yes please. Um…" She balled up a fist and pressed it hard against her leg. "Was I imagining the sound of a lightsaber outside?"

"No," he admitted. "I was just…" He gestured to the weapon on the table. "Testing it out. It still works."

"Oh."

"Tea?"

"I think that would be good," she decided.

Remembering vaguely that his sister, when roused from a deep sleep, was generally as disorientated as a Jawa tossed headfirst into an ocean, he proceeded draining the last of the R'alla water into one of their collapsible pots. Then he fired up the old stove and set about re-packing his gear. Despite his amiable mood he was dreading the next week just as much as she was.

_As a Jedi, one should accept what life offers you with calm_.

Luke determined that he felt very calm.

_A Jedi greets each day grateful and appreciative, curious, open minded, seeking a lesson to be learned_.

That was notwithstanding the fact that he was going to have to cut his way through over two hundred kilometres of dense forest.

_A Jedi_…

"Blah, blah, blah," he mumbled, hoping to dam the unwelcome fountain of Yoda's axioms inspired by his dream. There was no harm in a bit of perfectly understandable sighing at the prospect of insta-meal for breakfast. The chalky nutrient rich substance was the mainstay of most survival packs and tasted about as good as its name would lead one to believe.

Moving tenderly, Leia hobbled over with two mugs in hand. "What did you say?

"Uh… I said hopefully we can make good time today." He stirred a hefty spoonful of the tealeaves into the pot. They had no strainer, so he steeled himself to enjoy dregs and floating leaves along with insta-meal. "Having so many hours of daylight might not be such a bad thing after all. How'd you sleep?"

"I had a very odd dream where Fey'lya was arguing that he was my next of kin and was legally entitled to my pension and bank accounts when I was declared deceased…"

Luke struggled not to laugh and ended up snorting.

"It seemed ridiculous in my dream," she added. "I was included in the vote… meaning I was there, and he was still arguing his case. He claimed he was my uncle…" She lifted an arm and rolled back her sleeve, banging the mugs together noisily. "Am I covered in fur? I mean, I know many species interbreed with humans but _Bothans_?"

He kept chuckling, picturing the cream coloured politician arguing his case, fur rippling, whiskers shaking, arms waving with documents.

"I know," she smiled. "I was so relieved when I woke up."

"I take it he's not listed as your beneficiary anywhere?"

"Oh no," she exhaled. "Not unless he's posing as the head of the Alderaanian relief fund."

"That's where it goes?" he asked, thinking, in the same breath, that of course that's who she would have left everything to.

"Yeah…" She sighed. "Every time I delude myself into thinking I'm too young to have such a well documented will something happens. Yesterday happens... and…right now I feel like I was pummelled with a pair of fists while was sleeping." She added, looking at him knowingly, "I might even say I feel like I was in a shuttle crash."

"You _were_," Luke winked back, unable to miss the grimace that accompanied the complaint. "Is it that bad?"

"My repertoire of skills doesn't include self-healing," she reminded him, her posture growing business like and stern. "That reminds me. You know, you have a pension and stipend too Luke. There should be something in your file other than your name, rank, and fifty pages of blanks."

The water started boiling over on the stove. He used his cuff to protect his hand and poured the tea into the mugs, then had an idea. "Nag me about it when we get back."

"I will," she assured him.

"Now back to you," he began.

"Back to what?"

Luke caught her arm as she reached for her tea. "First things first. How about taking the edge off yesterday's beating?" Donning the most innocent expression he could muster up, he leaned forward and grasped both her hands. "Relax. It'll help."

Flustered, Leia tensed. "How?"

"Relax." He concentrated on touching her mind without being intrusive. Just enough to foster receptiveness. This was the first time he'd ever tried anything like this. Unsure of how to direct the flow of the Force's vibrant and pulsating energy directly towards her, he tried to envision himself as a conduit and hoped it would work. When he decided it had been long enough, he released her hands. "Better?"

She swung her arms up over her head. "That's… You did this today?"

"A little." He cautioned her. "Don't get too excited. It'll wear off. I can only suppress my physical awareness for short periods. You still have to respect pain, work with it, but not forget it's a physiological response warning that you need to stop and heal or take it easy. But these are special circumstances. We need all the help we can get today."

"Oh." Her mouth turned down at the corners, and she looked away. Rather than grateful, she appeared equally miffed and concerned, quizzical.

"Now what's wrong?" he groaned.

"Nothing's wrong," she said quickly.

"You look annoyed."

"I'm not."

"Then what is it?"

"I appreciate it," she assured him. "I really do, but we're eight days from the base at least and it's going to be hard, I know that. Are you planning on doing this every time I'm sore or tired?" Awkwardly, she fumbled to explain herself. "I'm sorry. It's just that...well... I don't want to confuse good intentions with personal motives."

Luke immediately saw where this line of conversation was headed, or thought he did, and realized then that he'd made a mistake. Using the Force as a panacea for his own ailments was one thing. This way would be completely unorthodox, unethical, diametrically opposed to everything he stood for unless she agreed to sit and learn how to do it on her own. His brain had subconsciously avoided the logic, avoided the notion that his motives were less than innocent. They skated on the edge, easily going either way, his offering nearly the equivalent of a free trial. So he said, smiling to cover his slight embarrassment, "It's a gift, nothing more."

"Then thank you."


	3. Chapter 3

~Chapter 3~

**Rwookrrorro, Kashyyyk**:

It had been _his _decision.

Han hated that. He hated the truth of it. It seemed almost insouciant, the truth that he'd had it in him to walk away from her, stick to his guns, do what he'd told her he would. It hadn't been like that at all. There was certainly no pride to be salvaged from acts that hurt people, especially people you loved, whether you thought they would to them good or you good, the universe a world of good. This had been one of those oxymoronic decisions that ultimately hurt everyone a hell of a lot more than it did them any good, and he was starting to think it hadn't done anyone any good. Trouble was, once all was done and said, there was really no way to _undo _anything without undervaluing the point he'd been trying to make in the first place, that wouldn't paint his leaving her as a reckless act after all.

On occasion it was enough to make him hate himself.

In the early hours after the faintly sun dappled, leaf filtered, impossibly tree covered Kashyyyk dawn, Han Solo was not a happy man. Today he hated everyone and everything for no reason in particular.

It might not have been Leia at all.

It might have been the five flasks of Grakkyyn he'd consumed (idiotically too, because he was well versed in the effects of Wookiee spirits on human males) the night before, but he would never admit that because then he'd be admitting he no longer had the metabolism of a twenty year old. Time, years, aging – none of these had as of yet belligerently stomped their way into his worries, but they were all knocking at the doors.

More likely was the flashing red light on his Fabritech Sensor Array Interpreter, stubbornly insisting his primary shield generator was still off line.

"The blasted thing is on line," he shouted at it. "I just checked." He'd checked it five times now. The thousand-credit question was how much. First the hyperdrive shell, now the shield generator. They'd been lucky on Woostri, gotten a replacement in under a day. He was not counting on being so lucky twice in a row. He tabbed for more details.

_Novaldex Stasis Shield Generator reports a .037 degree variance_.

Han stormed back to the engine room and glowered at it, studiously following the mess of diatium wires. Once again he began the tedious process of rechecking the connections. Someone brilliant, he thought, should invent an interpreter that could tell you WHICH wire was causing the problem. If he knew which, it wouldn't take an hour to go through all fifty. They were, just like the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth time, all sealed and firmly attached. He marched back to the cockpit, swearing that he would blast the damned thing to bits if it still claimed to be off line. The Interpreter was now green, with a perverted version of a computerized smile in the right side corner.

_All systems functioning at maximum capacity_.

"About time," he muttered. Maybe he'd joggled a wire into place unknowingly. Either way, it was fixed and he didn't really care so long as he didn't have to replace it. This was supposed to be a vacation, and he didn't want to spend it holed up in his ship doing repairs.

Or maybe he did.

Who was he kidding? The reason he'd decided to leave the morning party in Chewie's home village was precisely to see if anything did need fixing. It was better to find things to do than have to endure Chewie and Mallobotuck's cooing and cuddling – whatever passed for Wookiee foreplay – or getting stuck babysitting Lumpawarrump. Coming to Kashyyyk had not been a good idea after all. Less than a day here and he was ready to take off.

He had to pinch himself, remind himself, that this had been his choice, for he had been the one to walk out.

It had been a fluke really, that on his way to the _Falcon _that night Madine had caught him in the hallways. He'd had no idea at the time what he was doing or where he was going, other than that he intended to round up Chewie and take off. His next tour on the _Mon Remonda _had been suspended indefinitely. Ever since the battle for Coruscant and the Krytos Virus epidemic, Zsinj's activities had fallen to the back burner. In the meantime, he hadn't been in the mood to volunteer for any duties that required a torture suit or where everyone addressed him as Sir. That had left him with little else to do than work on the _Falcon _and play consort to Leia for the numerous diplomatic functions taking place, that or make the odd insystem errand depending on who asked and how much they paid.

Madine made him a simple offer. They were looking for a skilled pilot and able ship to run supplies to Tierfon in the Sumitra Sector. The pick-up points and contact were all set, it was simply a matter of evading the Imperial Navy, getting in and about without ever using the same transponder twice and catching their attention. Tierfon was bottlenecked between competing warlords and factions, and although they were readying the outfit, now wasn't the time to launch a full-scale assault. The Supreme Allied Commander of Intelligence managed to avoid using the term _smuggler_, slyly hinting that his past occupation made him their first choice. They had needed him to leave right away, and they were also willing to pay quite well (a little too well for an official government, he had thought, but he had needed the money, and quasi legal smuggling for the New Republic was better than any of his alternatives). It turned out to be serendipitous. He was leaving _her_, not the New Republic although his brain had not calmed down enough to make the distinction. At the time it had been perfect: cash, a mission, and time away.

One hundred and twenty two days later, it wasn't so easy to remember why he'd left or what he was doing out here.

Although things between them had been bad when he left, after these long months they were overshadowed by the better times, when they weren't fighting, when she wasn't, in her own way, turning into the type of person he'd known so well for most of his life. Not to say it was the same, because it wasn't at all. He'd spent most of his life looking out for number one, Leia set her designs on the opposite end of the spectrum, looking out for everyone but herself. Noble, to be sure, but a hell of a way to live her life. He wasn't really sure how long after Endor it had been - it occurred so gradually, sneaked up on him - before she'd begun systematically closing herself off, throwing up boundaries, as though if he saw too much inside her, she feared he wouldn't like what was there. What she failed to understand was that he _knew _what was in there and loved her for it. His princess, wounded as she was, was still stronger than any woman he'd ever known. But she had the disconnected habit of one who treaded water against a flooding wave of panic and grief. Nothing was real to her unless it was grafted onto another; her war battered psyche viewed everything through the eyes of an empathic observer, who was so detached from her own life experiences she sought out safe methods to allow her own sorrow a cathartic outlet.

_Someone else…_

Not me…

_They _said - within the ranks of the New Republic - that she handled all that had happened to her remarkably well. _They _said - amidst the loose collection of refugees who'd survived Alderaan's destruction - that she offered hope, set an example, and reminded them life went on. _They _said - in journals and newsreels - that only her beauty surpassed her tenacity. They assumed they knew her. They didn't at all.

Han did. He knew her body like the back of his hand, how she liked to be touched, where she was ticklish, which muscles knotted up when she was tense. He memorized the freckles on her nose that were visible after a day in the sun, the birthmark on the outside of her right thigh, the tiny scars the hypodermic needles the interrogator droid had left along her spine on the first Death Star. He knew that the past five years had taken their toll on her, that what was on the outside was a mirage erected to placate her protagonists. He knew that on the inside she was falling apart. Whoever had decided there were five stages of grief had left one out. They neglected to include 'numb', that human tendency to curl up in shock and shove all other emotions back.

Numb was wearing off.

The nightmares weren't new. He had his own, of carbon freeze, of inky darkness, suffocating, wondering if he was dead or alive or lost in some realm in between. Her body was always there, warm and reassuring. In the darkness he could feel her heartbeat though her back where it pressed against his chest, hear the sound of her breathing. If she didn't have to be up too early, he'd wake her too so that they could forget everything but the here and now.

Hers were more varied. He knew, though he never told her, that he could tell what she dreamed about. When they were about Alderaan (and those dreams were hard for her, because she would awaken to remember it was gone again and again) she would snuggle against him and cry herself back to sleep. When they were about Bespin, she clung to him to make sure he was real, made him talk to her, prove he was really there. When they were about her father, or anything he'd done to her, she crept to the furthest side of the bed, unable to bear even the slightest physical contact.

Some nights, he awoke alone, only to find her huddled on the fresher floor staring at the tiles, thinking with a pained glaze over her eyes he could only guess at. It was always the same: _Please go away… I'm fine… I need to think_…

Whatever the definition of normal was, whatever _they _thought, none of it mattered. He wasn't sure what normal really was for either of them, what normal had been for her before. If you could get up each day, shower, brush your teeth, eat, go through the motions, nod when other people spoke to you, pass yourself off as someone who was in control, were you succeeding or acting?

The nightmares grew worse. She threw herself into her work. The mangled shield that had protected her for so long began crumbling. Her anger spilled over into their relationship with the force of a maelstrom, making her irritable and short tempered, prone to lashing out at him over trivial things. They bickered and fought. They made up in her bed, made love, and swore to each other next time they wouldn't let it go so far. They whispered words in the heat of passion, in the aftermath of lovemaking, that were as meaningless and insubstantial in the day as the secret admissions of two people drunk on wine in the wee hours of morning when they should have gone home hours ago. They forgot, and the cycle continued unchecked.

Han kept trying. For their second anniversary, he gave her a copy of Hari Seldona's _Requiem for Alderaan_. She'd thanked him profusely and told him she loved him, that she was touched. A few months later he'd found it buried away in the corner of a drawer, re-wrapped in the ornate paper, still sealed in its packaging. The funny thing was it didn't bother him that she couldn't read it, couldn't bear to open it. It bothered him that she couldn't say it to him, couldn't say something as simple as 'it hurts too much', admit she had her weaknesses.

It wasn't until Luke had all but withdrawn completely from her life that he'd begun to understand.

One day she would succeed at convincing herself she didn't need anyone. There would be no place for him. And as twisted as it seemed, as it sounded, she wouldn't be entirely alone. From whatever hell he'd been banished to when he died, Vader had one hand around her throat and was slowly destroying her.

It had been the beginning of the end, with neon lights blazing up ahead, and he'd ended it, hoping that by doing so there might be another beginning for them, although he was not nearly eloquent enough to have explained it to anyone, or even view it that way. It had been quite possibly the most difficult, gut wrenching decision the Corellian had ever had to make.

"A hundred and twenty two days," he sighed to the empty passageways. He'd hoped his absence would bring her to her senses. He wanted her to stop acting, stop pretending, say out loud, 'I need you', or something like it, but he was bitterly coming to realize that it hadn't worked. Maybe she was over him. Maybe one of those seedy stories he'd caught on the _Life Monitor Newsgrid_, media fodder for the galaxy, where the Princess of Alderaan was linked to that man or this man had been true. Heavens knew royalty from other worlds had courted her famously, right under his nose on occasion. Maybe she'd gone ahead and taken one of them to her bed. Maybe she'd replaced him. The not knowing left an acrid taste in his mouth.

It wouldn't help his mood to check the hypertransceiver for messages again, but he would. He withdrew the folded flimsy from his pocket and reread it.

_I haven_'_t forgotten I owe you one.  
You still jetting around with members of royal houses?  
If you are, information has come to my attention that I think  
she and her brother need to be made aware of.  
I_'_ll only go through you.  
Be in contact soon to arrange a meeting.  
Harkness_.

The message had arrived mere hours before they'd departed Woostri. Although he'd read it at least a dozen times, those four little words snagged him.

_She and her brother_…

He'd broken his vow not to contact her first and messaged three days ago. He'd stressed that it was urgent but not heard back yet.

Against his better judgment, he wandered to the unit and switched it on, then held his breath. There was a message waiting that began with the calling frequency of the Inner Council, though it wasn't her private channel. Anxiously, he scrolled the screen down.

_General Solo. Contact me as soon as you receive this_.

Mon Mothma's private channel was the one listed. He suddenly had a very bad feeling about all of this. Madine was the only New Republic leader he'd dealt with since he took the assignment, and if Mon Mothma was trying to reach him something was wrong. He tried the channel, wondering if waking the New Republic's Chief of State in the middle of the night could be construed as harassment, thankful the Grakkyyn fumes oozing through his pores couldn't be appreciated over the Holonet.

One of her aides answered, the static ridden screen image making him impossible to recognize.

"It's General Solo," he said.

"Oh. Yes, Sir. Please hold. We've been expecting you. She'll be right with you."

_That was quick_, he thought. The screen only showed the front of a desk, an empty chair. Her office, he guessed. There were voices coming from somewhere off screen, and he tensed until the smooth featured face of the New Republic's leader moved into view and into focus.

"General Solo," she began, pressing the corners of her mouth into a terse line.

He ran a hand self-consciously through his hair, praying he looked semi-respectable. "Mon Mothma."

"I have some information to share with you regarding Councilor Organa and General Skywalker."

A knot formed in his gut. "Yeah? Where are they?"

"They left for our base on Baskarn six days ago." She closed her eyes, looking weary and stressed. "They… a situation arose."

"What kind of situation?"

"Han-"

The switch to informal address told him instantly it was going to be bad. She'd never used to his first name before, not once in the three years he'd known her personally.

"I'm so very, very, sorry to be the one to give you this news but I wanted you to hear it from me before the media gets wind of it. Luke and Leia were supposed to arrive at Advanced Base Baskarn three days ago. Their shuttle arrived when it was _supposed _to, however it was detected coming into the base at speeds well over the safety requirements. When control radioed them there was no response. The shuttle continued heading toward the base and...It appeared to be out of control. They... They waited until the last second trying to get them to alter course before firing. They had no choice. I've reviewed the logs extensively myself. It does appear as though the shuttle was coming in on a suicide mission. When the shuttle was hit it exploded with such force we're assuming something on board was set to go off when it hit the base."

He thought he fell and hit the deck; a loud clap seemed to thunder in his head, but Mon Mothma was still in front of him. The audio and visuals were slightly out of sync, so that when her mouth moved he heard nothing, and when it didn't her voice kept coming. He was thinking, _she_'_s not dead. I would know_…

"Before they fired it was ascertained that there were no life forms on board."

He breathed a sigh of relief, of hope.

"We don't know what that means as of yet. They might have been captured and not been on the shuttle for some time. They may have deployed one of their escape pods. They might have been already dead. We've only just begun inspecting the wreckage."

"I'll go," he hastened, preparing himself for an argument. He wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer. His mind swam with images of Luke and Leia stranded or injured, out there somewhere on Baskarn or on one of the neighboring planets. "I'm one sector over. I can be at Baskarn in less than a day."

Mon Mothma's mouth flattened again as though she had anticipated this and prepared one, but she changed her mind and nodded. "I thought you might want to do that. I'll tell them to expect you."

The picture on screen faded to black. He swallowed and leaned back against the paneling. The knot in his gut felt more like a black hole. "She's not dead," he told himself. "They got off…." He ran for the hatch and made it to the bottom of the ramp. A golden furred cub lingered a few feet away, his curious examination of his ship interrupted. "Tell Chewie I had to leave," he shouted.

The youngster growled that he didn't understand Basic.

He waved his hands, pointed at the bridge that led to the village, at himself, to his ship, then up at the sky. "I'm leaving."

The cub stared blankly at him, tugging on its whiskers.

"Well whatever," Han snapped, dashing back inside and starting the engines. Taking off would be self-explanatory.

* * *

_I can_'_t do this_…

Mental will and physical limitations battled each other.

_Yes you can_…

Cutting the heavily coiled limbs was an art form they both perfected out of necessity. Swing the blade around in a semi-circle, bend low, arch overhead in the sweep, over, back down low, breathe, and give the roots two seconds to fall. Then move ahead and start again. If you stepped forward too quickly, the last victims crashed down on your head. If you didn't gingerly watch your footing, the broken limbs snagged your boots, and that left you in the rather awkward position of pitching forward with an outstretched lightsaber onto cut branches, the weight of the pack further adding to the precariousness. The work itself would have been backbreaking even if her whole body didn't scream with each movement that it had been nearly pulverized in the crash. Muscles she didn't know she possessed ached or felt torn. Scratching the tiniest itch on her back made her feel like a circus contortionist.

After three days of sheer drudgery, Leia had amassed a litany of verbal descriptions for the planet they'd crashed on, few of which could be spoken aloud in any official debriefing without censure or raised eyebrows. Her kindest thoughts were that Baskarn was a subterranean maze, trapping them like rats. Little life subsisted within; not even a resilient blade of grass poked its way up from the earth. Instead, the wood was barren and unfertile, discouraging all but the tiniest insects from making it their home.

The addition of night only made it worse. It took fifteen minutes just to clear enough space for their tent to be set up, provide enough room to take ten steps before hitting the gnarled walls. The need to create a sheltered world, carve enough away to ease the suffocation was illogical but reassuring. Up above was an endless patchwork of roots and darkness, reaching into more roots and darkness, any attempt to see past them as futile as searching for the source of snowflakes on a moonlit night; they stretched to infinity.

Again last night she'd shoved her sleep roll against the floppy wall and wrapped herself as snugly as possible, trying to adjust to the sounds, the feel of another person sleeping so close to her, of Luke sleeping near her. She'd been hypersensitive to every tiny movement he made, to every change in his breathing, awakening again and again when he jostled the tent by straightening a leg or an arm, rolling over. If the bone heavy weariness of her body was any indication of her physical appearance, she was eternally grateful she didn't have a mirror to see herself.

_I can_'_t do this_, she thought again.

If she'd known for a fact the end of the forest was near, she would have set her blaster for _vaporize _and tried blasting a path through it, even though basic physics dictated that in all likelihood she'd fuse the battery into a smoking blob of metal in ten minutes.

Admittedly, she knew it was ridiculous to think she'd be able to match a Jedi's endurance, let alone match her brother's upper body strength, but it wasn't going to stop her from trying. Since when had she ever let her sex serve as an excuse? They'd only been at it for six hours, and she'd only cut for two of those. This was her second shift and she hadn't been at it for half an hour yet but the nausea that had begun plaguing her intermittently before she left Home Fleet had returned with a vengeance. She took another swing, swallowed another mouthful of saliva, halted and took several deep breaths.

"You okay?" Luke asked.

"No," she panted. _Please, please don_'_t let me_…

Dropping his lightsaber and her pack, she dashed a few meters past him, vomiting onto cut branches. By the time her body was finished rebelling she was retching up bile and it was too late to be mortified. Luke was handing her the canteen. She did her best to rinse the acidic taste away and wash the clammy perspiration from her face.

Luke kicked enough of the debris away further off to drop his gear, then settled on top of the large pack cross-legged and worried. "You're sick?"

The tiny sip of water she'd swallowed accidentally made her insides squeeze and compress until it came back up. "I'm not sick," she lied quickly when she could talk again. "I'm just… too hot."

"We'll take a break."

Pausing at the stanch order – and she knew an _order _from her brother when she heard one - she pulled at the sticky collar of her coveralls. Beneath them, she was gluey all over, drenched in sweat. They didn't provide much ventilation in the muggy and damp undergrowth, but it had been cool when they started out. Her toes were squishing in her boots. Dropping clumsily to the ground, she unfastened her belt and the clasps on her suit. Then she dragged it down over her waist and struggled to pull the legs over her boots without removing them. Luke did the same, then rummaged around in his pack while she concentrated on staying very, very still. It would pass, soon enough.

When he pulled out the medkit she blanched. "You don't need that, I'm fine, really."

Again an order. "We'll run a quick scan to rule out anything environmental…"

"I'm really fine."

"I really don't think you are."

"I don't want you to run a scan," she retorted angrily, attempting to snatch the kit from his hands before he had a chance to open it. Luke didn't let go and it wound up stuck between them tug of war fashion though she got her fingers over the clasps. "I told you I'm too hot."

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" Luke rolled his eyes and jerked the kit away. "You're being ridiculous. I'm worried about you because you haven't exactly been a glowing picture of health since we left the fleet. And I've been meaning to ask when's the last time you had yourself checked out?"

"That would be the day before we left," she mumbled, thickly. This _was ridiculous_. She wasn't going to be able to hide this from Luke much longer, and had half expected him to know somehow, the way he always knew things.

"And?"

"I promise… I'm not sick," she said again, lifting her hair off the back of her neck, praying a wayward breeze would appear and save her. "Can we please leave it at that."

"Leia, no," he said firmly. "We're not going to 'leave it at that.' If there's something wrong with you…"

"There _isn_'_t_."

"This isn't up for debate." While they were arguing Luke had unpacked the portable medisensor and activated it. He tapped the end of the tiny scope connected to it with his forefinger to make sure it was working. "Just give me your arm…."

She took a few deep, almost _divine _breaths to summon courage and locked both arms at the elbows childishly. "Okay, look. You know how I said right now things are very complicated?"

Luke stopped tapping "Yes."

"They're more so than you can imagine. I'm pregnant."

Her brother fell back on his hands, mouth hanging open, shocked, stunned. He sucked in air between his teeth and stared at her for so long she thought maybe he hadn't heard her and she said it again, but he kept staring at her, until finally his hand reached across and rested on her side. Grinning enormously at her with an expression of sheer joy and wonder, he finally whispered, "You _are_! I can't believe I didn't feel it before. That's amazing. Its heart is beating so fast…"

_Its heart. Her heart_. She set her palm beside his over her belly. "You can feel her already?"

"_Her_?"

"Uh huh…"

"My stars…"

She had to laugh, because she was so nervous and because in all the years she had known Luke he had never said 'my stars' about anything, nor had she expected that he would be so happy, so beautifully jubilant, that it would be so blissfully contagious. For a second she allowed herself to share that with him, let the ripples of unrestrained elation wash over her. This felt good; a thousand times better than she'd imagined it would be when this moment came. She loved him for it. "You're going to have a niece."

He kept his hand on her side, shaking his head and grinning. "I don't believe it, I really don't. I figured it was years and years away…. I mean, remember that night on Bakura when we were talking and you said you weren't ready to even think about it… and… holy gawl."

"Holy gawl?" she echoed. First 'my stars' and now 'holy gawl'.

"Well," he explained sheepishly, "it's a very Tatooinian expression. How far along are you? I mean…" He studied her middle with newfound fascination. "You don't look very pregnant to me."

"Just over seven weeks."

"Wow."

She swiftly intercepted his attempt to hug her, nudging him back to arm's length. "Please no squeezing or touching unless you want to end up decorated with what's left of my insides."

He settled for giving her hand a quick squeeze. "What does it feel like? It must be incredible."

"It's… um…" Leia wasn't sure whether or not he anticipated a magnanimous response about life and creation. Obviously he wasn't waiting for her to say that she was exhausted and nauseous half the time, that her breasts ached so badly it hurt to sleep on her stomach, that she was riding an emotional roller coaster with no where to get off and that she cried over ridiculous things like malfunctioning consoles and missing datafiles. She quashed any illusions straightaway. "I feel like I picked up a terminal virus or I've spent too much time in one of those cut rate space stations that save credits by rationing oxygen."

"Oh, yeah, I forgot. I mean, I don't know that much about it," he blustered eagerly, "but I remember reading about the symptoms."

"They're all true," she sighed, wondering what anachronistic text he _had _read. The Alliance had had strict rules regarding pregnant women serving in combat and on their bases. Positive tests resulted in immediate dismissals, so she doubted he'd had much exposure to them. His aunt had also never had any children of her own - not that she knew much more about child rearing. Luke glanced over at her half digested breakfast again, which she desperately wished he wouldn't do. "I had supplements and drink mixes that helped but I didn't manage to pack them in the escape pod and apparently she hates insta-meal even more than I do. It feels _strange_. Good-strange though. I'm happy and... I'm happy you are too."

"So this is you're big secret?"

Leia smiled. "Not quite yet. I'd call her a tiny, tiny secret at the moment."

"I'll bet. When did you find out?"

Despite her many misgivings, he was so ecstatic it felt as though nothing she said could possibly make a difference. She decided to be as honest as she could with him. This was going to be difficult enough. "I've known since a few days after she was conceived…" Luke's mouth started to form the words, 'that soon? ' She went on, "I had a feeling. Call it female intuition. I just knew."

"Oh, Leia…" His face grew somber, guilty. "That message over the break? You must have known then?" In earnest, he murmured, "I would have been at Coruscant right away if I'd had any idea. I swear it. I hope you know that."

"I do. I know it. I couldn't tell you over the comm."

"Yeah. They are a terrible substitute for in person. But you've told Han, right? I know he'll be thrilled and even though you two... _Oh_." He stopped mid-sentence. The ephemeral spell crumbled to ashes and the blue of his eyes darkened to slate. "Oh…" He climbed to his feet, crossed his arms, turning to the wall of roots so that she couldn't see his expression. His stance was perfectly quiescent, his silence lucid. When the silence was on the verge of becoming unbearable, he started rationalizing aloud. "Han left four months ago right? I didn't know Han had made it back to the fleet? When was he back?"

"He wasn't," she replied simply.

"But you're seven weeks pregnant..."

"Yes."

"Then how..."

She was sure Luke's thoughts would eventually reach the most logical conclusion but it was taking him so long to get there she simply said it first. "Han isn't the father."

"_Oh_," he said again. It was as though someone unseen had pricked him hard with a sharp object, almost an _ouch_. "I didn't know you were seeing anyone else. I mean, I saw the footage of you and the Gasconian Ambassador. Everyone did, but I didn't think much of it."

She winced involuntarily. The Gasconian Ambassador had taken her to dinner twice, but her actual dealings with him had been to persuade him his planet's 'scientific' interests could be protected under the New Republic's Right to Privacy laws. Repeated offers to dinner where they could 'discuss the issues' as he'd put it, were tangled with hints that his government was leaning against joining the Republic, that there were sensitive issues he'd prefer to discuss without his aides listening in. After two dinners when it was obvious his intentions were personal, she'd politely told him she wasn't interested in playing games. Gascon had joined in the end, and nothing had ever gone on between them. The clips on the newsgrid of him taking her by the arm and leading her into a restaurant, dropping a kiss on her cheek had been replayed for a week, and she'd been furious to learn the holoshills had been tipped off by one of his assistants. It had been so many months ago she'd almost forgotten about it. "That was just the usual holovid garbage," she told him. "You know better than to believe it."

"Then…" He dropped back down beside her. "Then who?"

"It's personal. It's my business."

"Personal?" He stared at her vigilantly. "I'm confused."

"I mean it doesn't matter," she blurted out. "It isn't going to matter."

"What do you mean it doesn't matter? Do I know him?"

The sides of her throat stuck together when she tried to swallow. "No, you don't and whatever was between us doesn't matter. He doesn't know about this and I'm not going to tell him."

"But why? How could… obviously this wasn't that long after Han took off on his mission, yet you two… you two…"

"Went to bed together," she finished for him. "Yes."

"You didn't plan for this happen?"

"What do you think?" It came out sharply; she couldn't help it. Embarrassing them both in order to snuff out his current train of thought seemed like a good idea. "If you need an in depth discussion on modern birth control-"

Unruffled, he interjected, "No, I don't."

"Good then," she assented. Using _no _birth control, forgetting one's hormonal implant had expired and remembering the _next _day did not exactly fall under the _taking precautions _category anyway. That fell somewhere between the humanoid girl who posed for the 3-D education billboards on the arm of her amorous boyfriend with the sign, _I_'_m prepared _and the next image the pixels materialized into; a solitary and visibly distraught girl standing sideways and studying her ballooning stomach in the mirror. Her caption read, _I thought it wouldn_'_t happen to me_.

All Leia had been able to think that first week was, _I_'_m a Politician, a battle commander, part of the Inner Council, not one of the girls from those ads. I_'_m twenty-four not seventeen_…

Whatever Luke was thinking now caused something akin to reproach to flicker briefly in his eyes. Then he sank his chin onto his intersected forearms and sighed deeply. "_What in the blazes _has been going on since I left for Folor Leia? I feel like I don't know anything about your life. We were in hyperspace alone for a week, you could have told me any time. We've been here for three days and…" The tone of his voice took on a hard edge. "Speaking of which, you should have told me to begin with if you were feeling so badly. This trip hasn't been easy on either of us. I should have known from day one. Why wouldn't you have told me sooner?"

She picked up the canteen and wet her mouth. "You're right and I do apologize for that. I should have admitted not being up to this, but I really wanted to tell Han first. I thought I could make it. Getting stuck out here was not part of the master plan."

"Okay. Okay," he exhaled loudly. "Then what was your master plan?"

"My plan?" she echoed lamely, too queasy and weary to be quick on her recovery. There never had been any plan, per say. As Luke had dared accuse her in her cabin what felt like a lifetime ago, for the most part she'd been trying to avoid both of them temporarily, running away. But she couldn't admit that to him.

"You said you wanted to tell him first. Why didn't you stay with the fleet until he got back? He would have been back in a few days?"

"I needed more time to think," she murmured, wondering if the paltry excuse was near enough to the truth to fool him. "I wasn't ready yet."

It was. He barely considered it before saying, "Then I really should have been there. I should have gone back to Coruscant."

"There's nothing you could have done."

"There's plenty I could have done."

Simmering with indignation, she snapped, "Like what?" There were a thousand things he might say she didn't need to hear, didn't want to hear. "What precisely are you thinking you should have done?" she demanded. "You're my brother, _not _my chaperone and I certainly don't need a lecture in morality or life principles as they were where you were raised. I'm not going to pretend to be ashamed of anything I've done. It _happened_. I didn't plan for it to happen but it did."

Luke absorbed the backlash without reaction and kept going. "That's not what I meant at all. I meant I wouldn't have wanted you to be going through this alone the last few weeks. I wouldn't judge you the way you're thinking. Not ever. Surely you know that of me and if you don't..." He let the thought go, suggesting instead that she attempt to drink something, then dug out a carton of carbosyrup.

Immediately she began to feel better. Either the fruity taste was easier on her stomach or the break was helping. She'd been pushing herself too hard and she knew it. Now Luke knew it too. When he spoke again it was to ask one question.

"You're really not going to tell her father?"

Leia set the carton down and ground her palm into the soil. No one needed to remind her that he'd spent his entire life idolizing his father, tortured not knowing who his parents were, an orphan given over to the care of an uncle and aunt who weren't even blood relatives. But it was more than that. "Luke, it's more complicated than you think. What about the Council and our decision to tell them who Anakin Skywalker became? It's coming up soon, right? She's force sensitive – I can feel that already and I know _you _can. If this gets out, do you want to take the chance I won't be raising her, that she won't be protected?" Raising her chin again to meet his eyes she saw that he was indeed, only listening. "Because that's a risk," she implored. "You have to understand it could happen. If her father knows... I can't afford to let that happen. I won't."

He drew her dirt stained hand into his own again and this time he kept it firmly clasped. "It's really a possibility?"

She nodded. Her child's father was from Alderaan too. On Alderaan paternal rights were revered and protected as strongly as maternal ones. What remained of the Alderaanian council could accept his petition for a hearing if he wanted one, and then it would be a major public debacle carried out over the holovids. Luke would empathize and understand, but if he knew where her father was from it was only a matter of time – or a few hours detective work – before he learned _who _he was. "I'm not proud of having to make this decision, but I have to accept the consequences and repercussions. Trust me, I've had weeks and weeks to think about this. What matters is that she's innocent and she's mine and that matters more than how."

"What about Han? What are you going to tell him?"

She really didn't want to answer that, didn't even know if she could bring herself to say it. _When I tell him he's going to be on the other side of the galaxy before I can bat an eyelash and if he leaves for good it will break me… If, if, if_…

Luke's face grew grim. "Maybe this is a good time to explain to me what happened with you two?"

"I don't want to talk about it," she whispered thickly. "Please, please don't push me. I don't have the energy to do this right now. Either you're happy or you're going to keep haranguing me. Pick one or the other."

Luke's hand shifted to her shoulder. "I'm not. I wouldn't and I'm sorry if it's coming across that way. This is just sort of a shock, I guess. If you were telling me this was you and Han it would be one thing and but I had no idea until now you two were over. But..." There were more questions brewing beneath his pose, she felt them keenly, but he gave up for the time being, returning to the good. "I'm very happy for you. You're going to be a mother. That's the sort of news you celebrate, right?"

She forced a weak smile. Whatever spirit of celebration they'd been sharing had been lost ages ago. The truth be had, it was only recently that she'd been having those moments, quiet epiphanies, where the idea of bring a life into this world, holding a part of herself in her arms, caused her to gush with yearning and a love so primal its intensity awed her. For the most part the idea of taking on the enormous responsibility of being a mother terrified her. The impact this child was going to have on her life terrified her. But she said, vainly forcing the weak smile into something that resembled sincerity, "And you'll be an uncle."

"Imagine that," he marveled, leaning over to kiss her forehead. "Imagine me as an uncle."

Blinking back tears, she said in a low voice, "I always figured you'd be great at it." 


	4. Chapter 4

**~Chapter 4~  
**

The Hmumfmumf forest ended on the fifth day.

Not gradually, as Luke might have expected. It was rather sudden, as the nature of Baskarn's ecosystem made for a brusque shift in their surroundings. One moment the Hmumfmumf roots were surrounding them, the next they were clinging to new species, foreign plants, most of which were dead and dying. The periphery was set and mutating. It appeared the dense root systems choked out any competition ruthlessly; making them the most immense weed he'd ever seen. Someday they might overtake the entire planet. Perhaps they'd been slowly doing so for a thousand years. Either it was a flaw in the natural order of life here or an example of the worst of offworld life invading an environment.

Luke studiously began committing the new ecology to memory. As anyone might have expected, he was not one to disregard the aesthetic beauty of greener worlds, the simple pleasures of observation.

Baskarn, he came to the conclusion, was without equals when it came to odd varieties of trees. There were those which resembled the deciduous and majestic Massassi giants ubiquitous to Yavin IV, allowing small glimpses of the sky to peek through their canopies. Others possessed manes, heavy golden strands, like hair, cloaking them and weeping from the highest branches down to the ground. Those diaphanous walls refracted light in such a way that being inside made him momentarily feel as though he had entered a natural shrine or temple, a place to meditate. One could almost get lost by sweeping the strands away and stepping inside. On Endor there'd been thickets of trees called Arbo Mazes so compacted that any creature which wandered beneath the ground sweeping limbs was mourned. Nothing ever made its way out. The forests on Baskarn begged no less caution from its guests.

Types of climbing ferns, shrubs, and mosses also appeared. They discovered the hard way several times what plants were threatening or resulted in unpleasant encounters, what would soak them with molasses thick sap or sticky pollen. The jagged-edged vines leisurely winding around their way around the tree trunks were as sharp as any blade. Luke had recognized the native version of touch-knots, which secreted burning toxins, as they'd been rampant on Yavin IV, but he'd never seen creeping nettles until he walked through them, and no amount of his own powers stopped his legs from tingling and burning for hours. Nor did he know the carnivorous plants would be as excited about snapping their mouths shut on his hand, as they would the butt of his lightsaber, or an insect, or the flap of his jacket. Picking their sharp thorns from his palms repeatedly made him feel like he should march forward with his hands up, as his attempts to seek them out before stepping proved useless. They camouflaged themselves in the harmless flora, patiently waiting without being particular about their victims.

Birds nesting high above them chattered or sang incessantly, the air hummed with the maddening sound of insects - the only recognizable ones the brightly colored butterflies - and the insufferable itch mites and nafens that apparently lived on every planet, who were happy to find something to bite. Luke increased his frequent Force explorations for predators, knowing the food chain was sure to have a few that would see them as a meal. He'd already detected a number of hot spots, for lack of a better word, larger creatures maneuvering through the jungles with what felt like the assistance of the Force. That surprised him; all evidence, his senses, indicated they were primitive species, so he didn't understand how they used it, but the Force on Baskarn was very strong.

The entire jungle was patient. They were, it seemed, most of the time, the only two beings in a hurry.

Except for this very second. They'd finally struck gold, though the commodity they sought was much more common. Water. Enough water to bathe and wash their clothes. From head to toe both were layered in a thick grease of sweat and grime. The prospect of spending another night cooped up in the tent with his flight suit and person was not a welcome one.

"I'll make you a deal," Leia was imploring.

Luke glanced at the beckoning spring, at her dirt-smeared face, and back at the spring. "What kind of deal?"

"I'll let you go first if we can call it a day." He meant to pretend to consider the request, but he didn't get the chance. Abruptly she dropped her pack and scowled. "Why am I making a deal with you? You can keep going if you want but I'm _not _going anywhere."

He chuckled. These days Leia didn't need a valid reason to become irritated or grumpy. The imminent prospect of any disagreement set her off on a one-sided rant and if he kept his mouth shut she would play him with such dedicated accuracy it was unnerving. But he considered it a good sign; she was relaxing around him, letting her usually tight guarded moods show. Either that or she really couldn't help it, which he understood was part of it too. "I'm in, I'm in. I wouldn't dream of keeping going."

They set about clearing the area adjacent to the spring, using his lightsaber and their feet to cut, then kick the plant life away. Not necessarily Eco-sensitive, but he didn't want to accidentally sit in the nettles or touch-knots when it grew dark, nor have the bottom of their shelter shredded by the vines. Once a half-decent campsite was hand-made, he set about cutting surrounding branches. Camping in the midst of a gargantuan fire hazard had forced them to subsist on ration bars and insta-meal alone, without even risking their cookpad. The idea of a hot meal and a campfire was immensely appealing.

The water was cold enough to make him feel as though he'd been punched in the gut at first, but after a few minutes he grew used to it, floating and listening to the odd cacophony of creatures nearby while he watched Leia fuss over the cookpad and campfire. Every so often he reached out again, feeling the rapid cadence of her child's heart as it contracted and expanded inside her, content in the dreamless sleep of the unborn.

Luke was happy.

For years he'd imagined nieces and nephews, children, the future. Another Skywalker. Maybe it was selfish; the desire came as much from a sense of being miniscule, orphaned in such an enormous galaxy, he longed for an affirmation of their life, a sense that it would keep going and carry the legacy of future Jedi long after he had passed. He tended no to think of his own, as of yet un-envisioned offspring as such; he'd decided long ago that his goals left little room for normal yearnings and relationships. Thus, it was always in terms of Leia's children that he framed his daydreams.

He'd heard that the Jedi Council had been adamant that force-sensitive children needed to grow up in an environment specially attuned to their needs. According to old pro-Imperial holovids, the Jedi had wanted to control all aspects of a child's development, saw the natural bond between parent and child as an obstacle to their training. The holovids depicted stories of screaming children being seized from their parents in the dark of the night.

Luke had never really believed any of those stories were true, though he guessed the Old Council had sought to control many aspects of a Jedi's life. Perhaps it was no accident that the code said first, _there is no emotion, there is only peace_, and then expounded upon it by adding, _there is no passion, there is serenity_. While one might interpret emotion broadly, the meaning of passion was specific. Chastity may have been integral to the order, and not just so that the Jedi remained focused. Power was as seductive an aphrodisiac as the pheromones of a Falleen.

He'd faced the side effects of possessing power firsthand more times than he could count, habitually extricated himself from brazen flirtations. Most began with some lithe beauty sidling up to him... _Can you really do all those things they say_? That opening in particular was like having a bucket of ice water thrown on him. They all purred out the same sultry, saccharine awe. It had not been much different when he was younger, before he'd become a Jedi. In his first two years with the Alliance he had learned the hard way that women were more enthralled by his status as a hero or Rogue Squadron Commander, than they were with _who _he was.

Power was fickle that way, double edged.

It was also possible that the Jedi Council feared the possibility that the offspring of the Jedi might fall into Palpatine's hands, even before the purges had begun. He could only begin to fathom the peril wrought by such diabolical machinations.

_Dangerous indeed_, he considered, time and time again. _No one can bring forth a child with such a capacity for greatness or destruction without accepting the consequences and risks_.

The Jedi had known that, known what needed to be done. He didn't, though he had seven months to figure it out. His worries did not diminish his wonder toward the growing life-force, so brilliant with his twin's familiar essence.

To Luke's relief this early stage of pregnancy was holding her stubborn tendency to push herself beyond her limits in check. From all outward appearances nurturing, sheltering new life - a bundle of cells smaller than the tip of his pinkie finger - was very hard work. Recently Leia had been falling asleep the moment after they ate in the evenings, sleeping like the dead for the entire sixteen hour night and rarely awakening on her own. If they breaked for more than ten minutes she dropped off wherever she happened to slump over.

They needed to stop often. The frequent bouts of nausea appeared to have no beginning and no end. She claimed the jungle's odor (described in her words as a cross between rankweed, bantha fodder and rotting vegetation, which smelled perfectly woodsy and pleasant to him) made it worse. Luke had had no idea early pregnancy could be so trying or physically debilitating, and was trying very hard to be sympathetic, although conversely, he'd been informed asking how she felt fifty times in a row bordered on harassment.

Asking repeatedly about the father also fell under her definition of harassment. She was not forthcoming with any details. No, it wasn't anyone he knew or had ever met, nor was it that she didn't trust him to stay quiet. It was simply that if this was going to remain a secret it was better that it ended with her. Secrets ceased to be secrets when other people knew them. Sooner or later, she insisted, Luke's curiosity would compel him to seek her father out.

"Don't you think," she had admonished, "that an ordinary citizen might find it odd to have _Luke Skywalker _approach him and start up a casual conversation."

"He'll never know who I am," Luke had argued, unknowingly shoving his own foot in his mouth.

"Now see there! Whether or not he recognizes you is beside the point - you've just admitted you'd do it. I know you will."

Every discussion ended with her saying, "It's complicated," which was also her way of saying, "drop it."

So here they were, on the cusp of announcing their own paternity to the galaxy, with a new mystery to replace the old, only it was hers alone and not his to share with her. The birth of a new Skywalker would bring more than the obvious changes to both their lives. He understood what she'd meant on the flight out here when she said this wasn't a good time, though he had faith in her ability to recognize how crucial it was that she give due consideration to his request. She'd promised she'd think about it. They had a lot to decide.

He pondered all of this until his skin erupted into goose bumps, hastily rinsed his clothes and dressed in a pair of spare coveralls. Then he urged Leia off to the spring. By the time she returned clad in her neocel bodysuit, wet clothes in arm, dinner was ready and she looked happier and more refreshed than he'd seen her in days.

The aroma of hot food made his stomach grumble appreciatively, and the blazing fire warmed his chilled skin in seconds. This trip was a cross between the most hellish Galactic survival school, and vacations he'd seen advertised on holo-boards, selling a rustic experience for several thousand credits. The golden sheets surrounding them glinted exquisitely in the firelight. There was nothing, he decided, like going without the simplest of necessities to make them a luxurious indulgence.

Leia rambled on about staff shortages across the fire while they ate. "It's so frustrating Luke. I suppose half the Alliance hoped the end of the war would mean a chance to pick up our lives. The only thing becoming more abundantly clear to me every day is that the war isn't over, maybe one major battle but not the war. It's like… well you can't declare a win mid game in smashball just because you're up a hundred on the other team; you have to go back out on the court and see it through. And we're only up maybe… five."

Half-listening, he reached out with his senses, curling and uncurling them through the Force in much the same way he would his fingers. The night hinted at benevolence, nocturnal creatures roamed in the vicinity but didn't venture near. "Interesting way to put it," he noted, trying to catch up on her last few sentences. "I didn't know you followed smashball."

Making a face in response, she explained, "Sheer osmosis."

Luke knew very well who the smashball fan was. The mere mention of his name wrought an undercurrent of negative emotions: sorrow, anger, regret, a strong sense of… _abandonment_. It troubled him. His empathy ran too deeply in accord with Leia's feelings for him not to feel angry with Han, yet he didn't know what he had done, or why he assumed his friend had done anything. He had no idea what she was going to tell him.

An unseen creature screeched somewhere in the distance, and she started, then huddled closer to the fire and kept talking. "I don't know why I worry about it. Everything's going to change soon anyway, and it won't be my concern."

"What do you mean it won't be your concern?"

"I'm going to resign as Alderaan's representative to the New Republic."

For the second time that week his sister delivered news that rendered him temporarily speechless. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm resigning next month."

"But if you give up your senatorial position you'll lose your position on the Inner Council."

She feigned preoccupation with her damp hair and adeptly began guiding the tresses into a braid. "Yes, I will."

"Then why would you do that?"

"If I don't do it they'll end up asking me to."

"Because you're pregnant?"

"Yes."

Luke shook his head. _He _might be surprised that his sister was suddenly expecting on her own but not based on any social concerns. It was just that Leia was generally so proper and organized; to picture her off in the future with her children was to picture her life plan in the works. She planned everything and what she could control she did. As for Alderaan, he knew it had been extremely progressive. A single mother, an unsanctioned birth in the civilized realms of the galaxy wasn't atypical. The majority of humanoid cultures accepted it to varying degrees, many embraced such children, used terms like _charmed ones _and _gifts from the gods_. There were even a few species where paternity was regarded as inconsequential, where the idea of knowing the name of the life-giver was deemed blasphemy. (Unless you born of the Issori. They called such offspring the _vrecje_, strangers, and they buried them alive.) He discarded the errant and morbid basis for comparison. "No they wouldn't."

She rolled her eyes, swinging her head round to exaggerate the gesture. "_Think _about it Luke. I'm the last living descendant of House Organa. Don't forget I grew up under public scrutiny. The _Alderaanian Free Press _examines my every move under a microscope. There are several surviving elders serving on the Refugee Council, and this.." Her hand patted her stomach. "This is far beyond their scope of impropriety. I'll be accused of disgracing the Royal house, my father's legacy, and the Organa name. Even if I go away, take a leave of absence when I can no longer hide my pregnancy there's no way I'll be able to come back with an infant, unmarried…"

"That's absolutely archaic. Even if they called for a no-confidence vote you could fight it and I know you would win."

"Sure," she sighed. "With the way things stand today, maybe. But I'll stand a fat chance while they're reeling from the news of who my biological father was."

He bit his tongue. "It might not come to that."

She tied off the end of her braid and slumped back on her elbows. "You can make those files your friend Quigg decrypted disappear? Make him take a vow of silence? Conveniently forget?"

The point was vital. He said nothing.

"I didn't think so," she sighed. Then, she said as though she were reading text off a datapad, "Sex between those not married is immoral."

Luke tapped his index finger against his chin, unsure if she was being sarcastic or trying to be perversely funny. Certainly, she didn't subscribe to such preachy traditions, unless he had grossly misinterpreted her relationship with Han. Either that or Solo had a bizarre habit of getting to her quarters very early in the morning without shaving, dressing, or trying to calm down his bed head. "You're saying this because…" He left the sentence hanging.

"Many cultures hold that view." Her fingers tore at the ragged threads of her sleeve, tugging until one snapped off. She dropped it on the coals, watched it curl and sizzle. "Do you know who had the gall to say that to me?"

"Not a clue."

"Boba Fett." She hissed the name across the fire, her eyes fearsomely black and vicious. "If the most criminal and feared bounty hunter in the galaxy would say that to me, what do think the surviving elders will say? Alderaan might have been fairly liberated, but not that liberated. I'll take a leave of absence in a few months while I decide what to do. Winter will be able to serve in my stead until then."

"Hold on," he said, flipping his hand out. "Back up here." The same Boba Fett who had run them on a wild goose chase with Han? The same Fett he'd last seen dragged into the Sarlacc's stomach? "Was this when you were posing as Boussh?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of how?"

"Didn't Lando tell you? He told Han and…"

"Tell me what?"

Her face, though flushed from the heat of the campfire, was almost crimson. "That I got stuck sleeping in his chambers listening to him extol the sins of the spice trade and the Alliance."

"Discussing sex and morality?"

The bitterness in her voice rose several degrees. "Jabba had me hand delivered to his chambers to… to…avail myself of my services... But he didn't. He said that's why he wasn't going to touch me. That it was immoral."

Luke's skin crawled. Enduring Jabba's slobbering and the degradation of being chained to his dais was one thing but Lando has assured, _sworn _to him she wasn't harmed, and if he'd lied…

"He didn't want me," she hastily added. "I don't think he cared about women or… he lived by his own pompous and demented moral code. Oh! And do you know what else he said? He had the gall to tell me _my side _shouldn't have started the war… That Alderaan had made its choice and suffered the consequences, that the Empire was justified in taking action against it. I hope… I hope it really does take a thousand years for the Sarlaac to digest him and… Luke I was _fine_," she stressed emphatically. "And we're getting off topic. My point was that they're not going to accept this."

By _they_, she meant the Council again.

He picked up a stick and poked the dwindling coals. Sparks drifted like fireflies over their head, and the flames licked hungrily at the fresh pieces of wood he guided their way until the rising heat forced him to squirm backwards. He _never _should have allowed her to go to Jabba's alone, just as he somehow should have suspected she was up to something when she sent him off to Tatooine to wait for news after the bounty hunters trapped him on Bothwai. She'd wound up Xizor's prisoner on Coruscant and Xizor's interest in her had not been platonic. He remembered Dash and his endless ogling. Then Jabba. Small wonder Han forbade her from going anywhere he deemed remotely suspect without himself or Chewie as escort.

"For goodness sake, cut it out Luke," she sighed.

"Cut what out?"

Leia lifted her chin and raised a cynical eyebrow. "That… _you take too many risks _look that heralds the beginning of one of your overprotective streaks. I can't stand them."

He stretched out, touched the fragile flutter of life within her and forced a grin to ease his tension. "Tough. I'm not allowed now that you're carrying my niece? Too bad. You'll have to get used to it."

She smiled back brightly and craned her head, peering into the canopy. "I might make an exception to the rule if you promise not to get carried away and start acting like a Wookiee with a life debt."

"I'll try and hold back," Luke promised, following her gaze, eyeing the two sparks that were visible in the blanketing darkness. The largest was Baskarn's sister planet, Takornan, the other a moon.

"I used to drive my father crazy asking how big the universe was," she murmured, absentmindedly, as though she weren't really talking to him any longer. "What happens when you reached the end? How long does it take to go from one side to the other? He always had a calculated and mathematical response about the number of unexplored solar systems, quantum physics, spatial anomalies -you name it. It took a long time for me to figure out that even _he _couldn't define it, couldn't compartmentalize it into something known. It's just too much unknown."

"That's what I like about it."

"He would have made a wonderful grandfather," she added. "I don't think he would have been disappointed in me. Not too terribly." Her eyes shined a little too brightly across the fire, and he was conscious of a slow crescendo of grief, sharp as a knife, yawning between them like an abyss. Luke felt hesitant to venture near to it; he was trying to decide what to say when she stood and gathered up her bedroll. "I've been afraid to ask but what's your best estimation on the number of days we have left?"

"Six or seven days?"

"You said that the first day," she groaned.

"Maybe my expectations were a bit high," he conceded. "I wasn't counting on being stuck in a sprawling root system or having to do your share of the work."

"Gee, thanks. If you wanted to rub it in…"

"No," he assured her. "I don't mind. I just want you… two to get there safely." Everything else, the mission, the attempt on their lives and possibly the base, had become secondary concerns. "Really," he stressed. "That's all that matters."

"I know. Thank you. Good night Luke."

When she was gone he stared into the overhead canopy, the two stars blinking overhead, thinking about grandfathers again. He wondered what kind of grandfather Anakin Skywalker would have made if he'd never been Darth Vader. The familiar taste of rage grew thick on his tongue. Concentrating hard, and drawing the halcyon energies of the Force inside, he directed his anger outward, away, into the darkness above. It took the numbness with it, leaving him depressed and mournful instead. Then he kicked enough loose soil over the fire to extinguish it. The coals beneath would die out shortly on their own.

* * *

Leia was too worked up to fall asleep right away, rearranging the cloak that served as her pillow a dozen times. Despite her initial reluctance to sacrifice her position to avoid a scandal, she was starting to resign herself to the idea. Time away, time to herself, time to do all of the things Han had so long been urging her to do; heal, reflect, grieve. The cost of her freedom would be steep, but her absence would not be definite. There would still be a place for her in the New Republic; she was certain that Mon Mothma would create one for her, even if her diminished status precluded her from serving in the top tiers of the government.

She'd given Luke half the truth. Bail would have been elated _and _disappointed in her, though he would have buried his misgivings. Beneath the stern face of the man who was Alderaan's viceroy, had been a tender, caring side that few apart from his family ever saw. Maybe her child wouldn't inherit his temperament, but she could certainly teach her.

The image of the kind man who'd appeared to her in her quarters on Bakura broke unbidden and unwelcome into her thoughts.

_Monster_, she reminded herself.

"_I took the speeder out the next morning and saw him. He's just a melted pile of machinery and wires_."

Han had told her so many times she'd lost count. Sometimes he would say it, drag it in out of the blue, and time after time she would stare back at him, and think, _where did he come up with that_? But he kept saying it, and she refused to say, s_top, I believe you, because she wasn't sure that she did_. Anakin had still found her, hadn't he?

Unknowingly fathering her gave him no right to beg forgiveness. It gave him no right to ask anything of her, _ever_. She hated him, and it was easier to let her hatred for him absorb her, to hope that if she hated him enough she would never cower at the mention of his name again. Miraculously evading his clutches while he lived several times, in death he'd had a more profound affect on her than anyone could have anticipated.

Han knew it, or she thought he did.

_You swear he was dead_…

She rolled over and slipped her hands between her knees. As much as she hated to admit it, Han was the only person who seemed to know the right thing to do or say, even though most of the time it involved nothing more than holding her until she fell asleep. What she would have given to feel his arms around her now. She rubbed her stomach, for the first time wishing that it was swollen and outstretched, that her child kicked and moved inside her until it drove her nuts they way it would eventually, that she was enough of a contortionist to kiss her own stomach, as absurd as that seemed. In response the warm spot inside her grew vibrantly intense, and she drew her knees up to her chest protectively around it. Her daughter's psychic touch was a miracle to her, a beacon of hope and everything good when she was lonely and depressed. These moments alone were sacred. She had not told Luke she could feel her so intensely. If she did Luke would no doubt obsess over the likelihood that her connection to her daughter was heightening her force sensitivity and view her as an experiment. It was too private, too personal.

_I love you_, she thought. _I'll make sure everything's okay for you. I promise you'll never see the inside of anything like the place we found, that you'll have a chance to be happy_...

And the thought she dreaded most returned to her again. _This will be Vader's grandchild too. You can't deny it no matter how much you want to, even though you want to more than anything_.

Luke hadn't started in on her yet, but he would. His internal struggle was as palpable as the breeze that turned the leaves over before it rained, and he would shower her with valid concerns, appeal to her sense of responsibility. It seemed as though every time she found peace with one facet of her life, something lurked waiting to destroy it.

This pregnancy, however serendipitous she'd begun to believe it, wasn't immune or separate from issues that troubled her; instead it magnified them tenfold. It had altered her self-perception, the knowing of herself. By birthright she was a daughter, princess, sister. By choice she was Senator, Councilor, a lover. According to the Empire she was a fugitive, a rebel, defined by credits. Her bounty until the Battle of Hoth had been 150,000 credits, dead or alive. Later Vader had increased it to 400,000, alive. She shuddered to imagine the price he would have paid for her offspring, what the remains of the Empire would pay…

Now _mother_.

Jedi would follow Mother.

Over the past two years she'd seen herself far off in the future, a Jedi whose ambitions were guided solely by attempts to placate her brother, remain an integral part of his life. Despite the many times she'd fallen asleep at night praying she'd wake up bereft of her Force sensitivity, it was always there, tangible enough for her limited abilities to feel. Now she needed it. It was no longer a question of loyalty to her brother, but to her children. She didn't come first anymore, nor did anything else that was important to her whether she had control over her life or not.

She pictured Han holding an infant, cooing at it, nestling it in the crook of his elbow and fought back tears.

Submitting to distant, comforting, reverie, she lay on her side and imagined he was there. Often he lay with one knee crooked behind her own and the other pushed over hers and weighing her down. He'd press his chest against her back and hold her so that the coarse hairs of his arms scratched at her bare skin. His body heat would warm her and his hands would roam until she half-woke, drowsy with arousal. By the time she drifted off Leia was could almost feel him and prayed that the visualization would guard her dreams.

* * *

"Please excuse me, Sir…"

"Oh Sir, I apologize..."

Han hurried through the halls dodging droids guiding repulsor sleds loaded with everything from cleaning supplies to laundry to food stuffs.

Advanced Base Baskarn had been built into a series of naturally occurring caverns within one of the planet's less impressive mountains over a decade ago. That had been back in the days when rumors of a Rebellion forming were only whispers in the back alleys of the spaceports and cantinas, when grumbling about the Empire in public brought harsh lessons to its citizens, taught them that free speech no longer existed. Caverns that opened out above the valley were sealed from the inclement weather by heavy carbon glass or synthplas, allowing clear visibility from within, yet coated with a porous type of di-crome that partially camouflaged their existence by making them appear as shadowy cracks and crags. Equally well-camouflaged atmosphere containment fields protected the hangers. To an unknowing observer, scout, or even a probe droid, the mountain appeared no different than it had before their arrival; from the inside, the view was spectacular.

The interior caverns were connected by kilometers of flexi-corridors, which maintained living conditions and kept oxygen from escaping at the higher altitude. Unfortunately, the narrow flexi-corridors had never been designed to hold two lanes of traffic, though the droids were apparently willing to concede that all bumps, shoves or 'get out of my way' were their fault. Han was trying to be more polite to the non-automaton sorts who passed him but he'd gotten several dirty looks.

The base was one of a handful deep in Imperial territory that had escaped detection, and so secluded the majority of Rebellion recruits posted there had been assigned indefinitely to deter the likelihood of its location being leaked by revolving door service men. Hence, Han felt like a complete stranger wandering through the halls, unable to put names to the faces, unfamiliar with the lingo, unrecognized as _the _General Solo who'd led the strike team on Endor, as _the _former Corellian smuggler linked to Leia Organa.

In a way it made things easier on him. Most of the base's staff knew he was a General from Home Fleet who'd come to the base to assist in the search. Beyond that, they didn't know he was searching for his lover and one of his closest friends. The last thing he wanted was the pity of complete strangers.

Mon Mothma had contacted the base's Commander in Chief, Major Risken, as promised, and made sure his clearance entitled him to a full update upon arrival. Like all men who were used to being in control, the Major had been visibly irritated at having an outsider step in and reluctant to share privileged information. Han had practically had to bribe the Com-Scan's archivist to see the logs of the doomed flight for himself.

It was like watching the climax in a holofilm you'd seen more times than you could count, thinking in that pivotal moment, _this time it might be different, this time the hero will make it, or he won't get away_. He'd replayed it over and over again. The _Razion's Edge _zoomed larger and larger at such high speeds it might have plowed directly through the mountain.

Eleven warnings had been broadcast over fifty-one seconds. _We will fire if you do not alter your current course and slow down_…

A solitary ion cannon blast had partially disabled the shuttle, but at that point it had been too late and they'd fired three laser blasts. The shuttle had exploded like a sun going nova. Han knew, from years of battle experience, that even a proton torpedo wouldn't have caused that much damage, even before viewing footage of the crash site.

The poor, wet behind the ears monitor on duty had been temporarily suspended by Major Risken for not following emergency procedures and firing _sooner_. The monitor had known who was supposed to be on board, even though the scanning system indicated that no life signs were present. The shock waves from the crash had resulted in the partial collapse of an entire wing on the south side of the base. There'd been no casualties and only two injuries listed as critical.

At the base of the mountain a square kilometer had been leveled, decimated, and turned into a virtual wasteland of rubble and ash. Droids that specialized in chemical and biological analysis had been crawling over it since the fires had been extinguished. So far they'd identified Baradium and Yterrbium, some other chemical he couldn't remember that destabilized atoms. All were known components of explosives, of thermal detonators. Add to those every type of metal or matter used for Lambda-class shuttles, and fifty types of organic residue that were defined as plant and animal. What they hadn't found – and Han was paralyzed with bated breath whenever they gave their reports – what they hadn't found was a trace of genetic material that was human.

_Sweetheart if you're dead_…

Sorrow and regret were two emotions he'd had more experience with in his checkered past than he cared to dwell on. They were a pair, always together; the latter unleashed by the former like an incurable disease. Take anything you'd said or done, any tough decision you'd made, any caustic remark you'd let slip out in the heat of the moment and _whoosh_… You'd gladly yank your teeth if it meant you could go back. _If I had to do it all again would I? Would I have said that? Wished that_? The questions trickled through the cracks, eating away at him.

A past he despised clawed at him mercilessly. _Honey, did you think of me_…

He remembered that day, remembered wondering, but couldn't remember the feeling, the lump in his throat and the weight of the galaxy crashing down on his head when Boba Fett told him. It might have happened that way. It was more like a childhood memory all, anesthetized by the years, fuzzy around the edges. He wasn't sure why he kept thinking about it save that reliving it a thousand times was going to be easier than finding out Leia was dead.

Han shook his head bitterly and avoided eye contact as he squeezed past a man in greasy technician's coveralls. Besides, he assured himself, as of today it had been officially ascertained that neither Leia nor Luke had been on the _Razion's Edge _when it crashed. They must have discovered there was a problem and made it off well before they fell within sensor range. Trouble was there was a chance the escape pod had been launched closer to Takornan, in which case the magnitude of the search was beyond the isolated base's resources. The base did have one of the Empire's coveted Hyperspace Orbiting Scanners circling the planet, which monitored incoming and outgoing hyperspace shadows, electron disruptions, the kind of stuff no mortal and most computer systems couldn't decipher. The HOS's, to the best of Han's knowledge, boasted a 78% success rate, so he was expecting _something soon_, but Risken had yet to release the data.

That had been puzzling him. It made no sense to carry out a search and rescue operation and hold back information.

To further add to the complicated scenario, all of the reasons that Baskarn had made a perfect location for a base made it equally imperfect for any sort of search and rescue. The myriad of lifeforms on the planet's surface made their reconnaissance of the vicinity hopeless, particularly since the biological readouts of the Yrashu were nearly identical to a human's. To top it off, Baskarn's unique arboreal ecology barred scouts and ground craft from entering vast areas of forest. Succinctly put, if the two were indeed on Baskarn, short of miracle, they would have to make their way to the base on their own.

That didn't mean Han was willing to wait and rest on laurels. For the past few days he'd taken the _Falcon _out and carefully navigated beneath the clouds and just above the treetops, searching and praying he'd spot their escape pod. Every evening he attended the latest briefings. Today he'd found nothing yet again, and as he entered the airy central rotunda and made his way across to the command chamber he prayed there was good news.

The air was buzzing with excitement. As soon as he crossed the threshold he felt it, even before he noticed the two black uniforms off to the side of the forward podium. Their dress bore the distinctive red emblems of SpecForce security's Intelligence unit. One he recognized on sight, but not by name, an oversized, balding man in his mid fifties who spent most of his time on desk duty. The other looked like Lando bereft of his sense of humor, mustache and fine frippery. They were both just in from Coruscant, no doubt, and Han hoped their arrival meant they had news of whoever was responsible for rigging the shuttle. Casually disregarding the scanty selection of collapsible chairs, he lingered at the back of the chamber with a few equally fidgety officers and crew.

"_Humans_," the nearest officer, a blue skinned Duro hissed in his native tongue. "Where does it say having a nose is required for promotions?"

Han glanced at the two slits in the otherwise flat center of the Durosian's face. Their superiority complex extended to most species. Prejudices ran rampant in the new government, and even Han had to concede that other than Admiral Ackbar he couldn't name more than two or three other non-humans in command. It wasn't a policy he supported personally, but he had no say when it came to appointments. Still, feeling sympathetic, Han quipped in lightly accented Durosian, "It's not the noses they require per say, it's more the brown nosing."

The Duro chuckled to himself and straightened. "You must be General Solo?"

_I am always at a disadvantage no matter what side I'm on_, Han thought, mildly surprised to find his old sense of humor actually intact and recognizable to others. "And you are?"

"Private Raniss."

Major Risken rapped his knuckles on the ledge of the fore podium and cleared his throat loudly, waiting for the general din and hubbub of the two dozen men and women present to subside.

"My fellow servicemen," Risken began. "I'm sure you've all noticed the presence of SpecForce's finest with us this evening, and if you haven't yet made their acquaintance I'd like to introduce Admiral Rieekan and General Ley'kel."

Both men stepped forward to assume control of the chamber.

"The Admiral is branch head of internal security back with the fleet," Raniss told him, switching to Basic.

Han fought the urge to grimace. If SpecForce had been doing their job back with the fleet, how had one of their shuttles been turned into a ticking time bomb? Nitpicking over their training manual? A swift appraisal of Rieekan revealed little more. There was question of relation between him and the legendary Carlist Rieekan, but Han dismissed it. This Rieekan's fair hair and light eyes bespoke a different background, and the surname was obscenely common on many core worlds. Additionally, Han instinctively didn't like him in a sort of knee jerk reflex fashion though he was hard pressed to remember why.

SpecForce's head of internal security stepped forward. "A major breach in the New Republic's security, these recent events, caution us that even during the lull of the battle, we cannot be caught unawares. We've suffered grievous losses against Ysanne Isard over the past two years, and are facing undetermined dangers in the near future. We have recently lost the foothold we had in the Ottega Sector, the Quelii, Ithorian and Dathomir Systems. Destabilization continues despite our best efforts to assert ourselves as the _New__ Republic_, as a legitimate government. We are combating the Empire every day, and though many of our battles are fought around discussion tables and in conference rooms we are _still _at war. Let there be no mistake. Let us not forget."

"Here, here," a few voices cried out.

He then paused so long Han wondered whether he was hoping his preamble would ferment with age. Men of his stature always seemed to think long pauses created an air of wisdom. It merely made Han want to kick him and tell him to get on with it.

"The impact of this incident is far reaching. We've had to abandon a mission that has been a year in the making and cost us several of our best operatives from our Infiltrators unit. This is a drastic loss for the New Republic. As well, for six days we've feared that we may have lost two of the New Republic's most influential leaders. I am happy to report that data from the crash site has failed to offer a trace of either. General Skywalker and Councilor Organa did not perish on board either due to sabotage or as a result of the crash." There were many sighs of relief. "Of this we are certain for several reasons."

Ley'kel stepped to the side and activated a projector. A three dimensional hologram of the _Razion's Edge's _technical readout from Coruscant appeared.

"The Hyperspace Orbiting Scanner's logs show that the escape pod was in fact deployed approximately two kilometers shy of Baskarn's atmosphere. They were near enough to Baskarn for it's gravitational pull to drag them down. Therefore Takornan can be ruled out as our alternative rescue site. However, several distressing facts have come to our attention, both from Home Fleet, supported by the Scanner's finding."

Rieekan pointed to a series of flashing reds beckoning from the hologram. "What is so distressing is that the shuttle continued along its preset flight path, with the detonators on board _after _the escape pod was deployed. Diagnostic checks of the shuttle by the base technicians reveal no gross irregularities, save one." He pointed to the red blipping spec on the starboard side of the shuttle. "It failed to rouse suspicion, despite the fact that it's not normally installed on our Lambda-class vehicles. What you're seeing here is a remote system, connected to autopilot."

In order for an escape pod to be released a ship's system had to be on manual. Computers didn't flee doomed crafts; they weren't mortal, they had nothing to escape. Han knew it, as did everyone present. Secondly, remotes needed to be within sensor range of the craft they were connected to, so he expected the Admiral to tell them the HOS had picked up another craft dropping out of hyperspace behind them.

"Unfortunately, the Scanner detected no sign of another craft dropping out of hyperspace behind the _Razion's Edge_."

Han was puzzled. _Then where_…

"The only place the remote could have been located was in the escape pod and that means only one thing. This act bespeaks treason of the most ominous sort, the sort we fear, guard against, and must be prepared for even from within our own ranks. At this point we're not ruling out any of our maintenance workers, deck hands, officers who had access to the shuttle's hanger. My men at Home Fleet are conducting interviews as we speak." The Admiral lowered his voice. "Our goal here is the recovery of General Skywalker and Councilor Organa and their escape pod so that it can be examined. It is with a heavy heart that I am forced to inform you of this, but I must. Extreme caution is to be exercised until any participation on their part has been ruled out. Bear in mind that Luke Skywalker is known to possess talents and capabilities which have made him a formidable adversary against many of our greatest enemies."

The hushed whispers that followed nearly drowned out Han's gasp of disbelief. "You're suggesting Luke Skywalker had something to do with this?"

"General Solo," Rieekan replied smoothly. "If you have something to add protocol dictates you wait until the end of the briefing."

"This is ridiculous," Han countered, damning the Admiral's protocol. "This was an inside job, I'll agree with you there but if you think Luke was involved you're wasting your time. You're wasting everyone's time."

"Information has surfaced which indicates Skywalker's involvement."

"Don't hold back. I'd like to hear it. I'm sure we'd all like to hear it."

"It's strictly need to know. General Solo, we're well aware of your relationship with both Skywalker and the Councilor. If your allegiance to them supersedes your allegiance to the New Republic now is the time for you to step back and not interfere. We've already established that you've been out of contact with both of them for quite some time, otherwise we'd be interviewing you as we speak."

_Great, just great_, Han thought, suddenly remembering where he'd seen him before, wondering how the hell the guy had been promoted so high up in five years. Not only was the pompous nutcase accusing Luke and Leia, he was insinuating that his credibility had already been called into question. He glared around. The entire chamber was staring at him. "What about Councilor Organa?" he asked harshly, trying to ignore the curious faces. "Are you adding traitor to her dossier as well?"

"At present we prefer to believe she was a mere victim of circumstance, not actively involved. As I said earlier, our efforts at the fleet are ongoing as we speak…"

"How generous of you," he sneered contemptuously. "In the meantime the real culprits are probably laughing their tails off." He flitted his fingers through the air over his head. "All the way to the Unknown Regions, which is where they'll probably be when you figure you who they are."

"_General_!"

Han forced himself to take a deep breath and count to ten. Arguing with a superior officer in front of an entire room full of servicemen wasn't going to score him any points for the future. Then again, playing at fake neutrality for the sake of protocol wasn't his style either. Luke would be sticking up for him, without question or hesitation. "With all due respect Admiral," he said coldly, "You were a pilot at Yavin weren't you? You lost your entire squadron, were the sole survivor."

"I'm a decorated member of the New Republic, General, if that's what you're asking."

"Your shuttle malfunctioned didn't it? You were back in the main hanger in five that day? Because let me refresh _your _memory. You'd be a pile of _dust _in an asteroid field today if it weren't for Skywalker. Maybe your allegiances need a little reviewing?"

Rieekan flushed scarlet, veins on either side of his temple bulging. "If you're looking for an escort back to the fleet to face insubordination charges I don't have a problem with signing the order."

But Han was already heading for the door, biting his tongue. _Don't say it, don't say it_. It couldn't be helped. Over his shoulder at the top of his lungs, he hollered, "That would probably take about as much guts as it did to bash out your own targeting system and blame it on a flying rock."

He kept walking and listened for the sound of footsteps hurrying to arrest him, but none followed. "This is a god damned circus," he told himself. "If I had a druggat for every mop-head…" He didn't slow until he reached his cabin, punched the security code and sealed the door behind him. If a team of armed guards wasn't waiting to meet him first thing in the morning and the _Falcon _wasn't impounded, he'd be counting himself a lucky man.

Leia was not going to be impressed when they finally found her. This wasn't how she would handle things. _It would help_, she had advised him more than once, _if you thought about what you were going to say before you said it_. Maybe he shouldn't have said that, but this was ludicrous. There was no way Luke had anything to do with this, no matter what information they'd gotten their hands on. Besides, he'd heard the rumors on Yavin IV about the washed up pilot who'd claimed something had hit his Y-Wing, that he'd slammed his helmet forward against his targeting system. They'd never found a scratch on his hull.

"Sweetheart, you can yell at me all you want as long as you're okay," he told the empty room. Being laid into by a living, breathing woman was preferable to thinking her remains were distributed amidst the rubble, or Luke's, or that she lay stranded and injured in the jungles below.

Han sighed mournfully and made his way across the room to the large carbon glass window. It offered a full view of the cirrus clouds; the setting sun cast a pinkish bruise behind the curls and wisps. She was out there somewhere…

_"Han, don't you dare!" She was seated waist deep in mineral water, legs drawn up tightly, arms held close, a tell tale flush still visible across her cheeks, neck, the front of her chest. Carosi IV, famous for its Hot Springs and resorts, was a rare vacation. For three days they'd played like lovesick teenagers, exploring the crystalline caves and seeking out the most secluded areas._

_He had one of those touristy gifts, a holo-taker, aimed her way and he was pretending to click it over and over. "I'll never let anyone else see these," he promised. "Come on… just move your arms an inch…"_

_"No… No…"_

_In the ensuing scuffle she got her hands on the offensive item and threatened to drop in the water._

_"I'll do it," she threatened. "Unless…unless you tell me you love me more than your ship."_

_"I love you more than YOUR ship," he teased._

_"Oh…Oh…" She dangled it just above the surface. "Witty but it's not what I meant."_

_"Did I mention that thing's waterproof."_

_"In that case..." she paused, planning her next mode of attack, then raised the holo-taker. "Would you please stand up?"_

_"Go right ahead," he replied, watching her, half in, half out of the water, soaking wet and stark naked, preparing to capture his uncensored image for prosperity. "Did I tell you how beautiful you look today?"_

_"I think I can see evidence of that even from over here," she laughed._

_"Maybe you should come close."_

_"Closer? I'm not sure that's a good idea."_

_"You won't regret it."_

_"That's what you always say." She lifted the streaming veil of hair behind her head and stretched invitingly with all the confidence of a woman who knew exactly the sort of effect that would have any hot blooded man, especially him. This was a new side to Leia, having recently discovered that her sexuality was a form of power, and she loved to test it out._

_It was working. His legs felt like quivering stumps of protoplasm. "Come on," he beckoned._

_To his surprise she obeyed, splashing over and hanging her arms around his neck so that he could hoist her up. "Did I tell you I love you today Han?_"

Han wandered into the small kitchen for a glass of water. He couldn't afford to do this, especially not now. Wherever they were, Luke and Leia had no idea what would be awaiting them, and that meant he'd better work on finding out what information Rieekan had gotten his hands on. If Harkness knew they were siblings than he could logically assume there was a source, but there was no way of knowing how far the trail extended or if Harkness' message to him was related to whatever Rieekan was alluding to. The timing of these events was certainly interesting.

After a few long swallows he chucked the empty glass into the sink and headed for the door. What he needed was the nearest comm unit on the floor, preferably before Rieekan had finished his briefing and drawn up his report. There were a few aces up his sleeve, a few favors it was time to call in. Madine owed him for his last stint and if anyone could make a subordination charge vanish he could. Not to mention, he thought wickedly, it would be very satisfying indeed to see Rieekan's expression when he discovered he'd gone over his head.

Even Luke had said he couldn't find a scratch, hadn't he?

* * *

_She crouched low in her hiding place, wondering what happened to the light. A muted buzzing sound crept its way into her consciousness._

_There was a man's voice nearby. "...Something stronger. The skirtopanol and other narcos haven't affected her as hoped."_

_Heavy breathing betrayed the presence of another, their entire existence, as though no one else had a right to intrude upon the space they claimed. She hugged her arms tighter about herself in anticipation, wishing she could will herself invisible, will herself to be so small they wouldn't know she was there any more._

_The deep voice with the labored and mechanical breathing spoke next. "I advised you that it wouldn't Senator. This is a waste of our time."_

_"Yes, My Lord."_

_My Lord. My Lord. Over and over. She shifted her cheek and opened her eyes. Her face had been pressed into the flesh of her inner arm. It wasn't really dark - rather the lights above her were blinding, and she couldn't see much beyond the black robes in front of her. They were very, very close, closer than she wanted them to be. Panic choked her so that she couldn't breathe, couldn't listen to what they were saying. The buzzing closed in on her._

_"Your Highness. This can end if you want it to. All you have to is..."_

_A voice that no longer resembled her own answered. It was too raw, too scratched thin. "I don't know anything…" Her feet were burning, her back, her hands… She wanted to scream but something was wrong with her throat._

_"You do," said the figure in black kneeling next to her. "Your father has already told us..."_

_She looked into its face, if you could call it that. How could you look into eyes that weren't eyes, a face that wasn't a face, and a soul that didn't exist? The space behind him was unguarded, open, beckoning with a promise of escape. She crawled forward on her hands and knees, used the wall to pull herself up and peered down in into the bottomless depths of the service shaft, let the whoosh of rising air kiss her face. On this meter wide catwalk her brother had once thrown his cable so that they could cross, only he wasn't here and he wasn't coming for her this time._

_She flung herself over the edge into the void, surrendered without wondering where or why, just praying wherever she landed it would be soft enough to break the tumble without destroying her._

_Leaves and brush scratched at her face. Then she was prone, stretched out on soft ground. It didn't occur to her to marvel at the fact that the wind wasn't even knocked out of her chest, or that gravity had not propelled her with such force that she was instantly crushed_.

_I'm dreaming_, she thought desperately, with the habit of one who dreamed and knew when she had to awaken, knew how to awaken herself. _Leia, wake up. Wake up_.

She tried to lift her head, move her limbs. They wouldn't or couldn't obey her. But she was certain that she was awake, that she was on the verge of consciousness, however her body was paralyzed, refusing to accompany her mind.

Someone was there. She could smell him; she could even hear him breathing, felt him touch her side…

"Tol'hi'denata," he whispered softly. "Tol'hi'denata krd'ss essa al'ryn ryallenush. Chal'hah krd'ss essa al'ryn ryallenush…" The gravely voice turned harsh with hatred. "Tol'hi'denata krd'ss essa al'ryn ryallenush. Chal'hah krd'ss essa al'ryn ryallenush…"

Her throat constricted, closing in on itself so that she couldn't breathe, though she couldn't feel the weight of a hand around it.

_Leia wake up, wake up_. She strained with every bit of strength in her body to break free against the tourniquet asphyxiating her but nothing moved; her body was disconnected from her brain. Lightheadedness kicked in. It hit her like a shot of obliviane, seeping through her weighted and unresponsive frame. She wondered how long it took to die this way?

_Leia wake up. Wake up_. It became a repetitive scream inside her head. _WAKE UP! WAKE UP_!

It happened with a burst of oxygen inflating her lungs. Finally her body and mind rejoined. She twisted herself upright, drawing one hand over her heart and willing it to stop beating as though it was an animal trapped inside her chest. _You're safe, you're safe, you're safe_…

Feeling for the blankets, she was shocked to discover debris, twigs and leaves beneath her. In desperation, she crawled on her hands and knees. Sooner or later she'd hit her bed, sooner or later she'd find the glowrod, find the blankets. Sooner or later she'd bump into Luke's form. Long gossamer strands brushed her cheek. She froze as the grip of panic resonating from her nightmare rapidly transformed into full-blown horror.

This wasn't the shelter…

Her feet and back still felt like they were on fire…

Someone had been speaking to her…

She couldn't see anything…

"Luke," she whispered. She couldn't even hear the hiss of air leaving her lips. For the first time in her life, she understood what people meant when they described darkness as suffocating, heavy, so _thick _you couldn't breathe, felt as though you were drowning wrapped in layer upon layer of blackness. Save a violent pounding that seemed to originate from deep inside of her chest, there weren't even any sounds.

Trembling all over, she climbed to her feet and tried moving forward with her arms out. The curtains draped themselves over her, letting her pass into another open chamber, then another, then another, until she hit the gnarled bark of a trunk. She had no idea what direction she was headed. Knowing she might be able to sense Luke's location through the Force, she took a deep breath and tried to calm down. The Force was there, it had to be there, but she couldn't find it.

_You have to get to Luke. You were dreaming, just dreaming_.

"Luke," she called again. _Why can't I hear myself?_ The pricks of thorns and the burns on the soles of her bare feet were excruciating. She slid down along the rough wood and grabbed her toes but that only spread the sticky oozing fire onto her hands. She rubbed them on her thighs and felt instant heat through the thin material of her bodysuit. Then she realized what it was and stopped.

"Tol'hi'denata krd'ss essa al'ryn ryallenush. Chal'hah krd'ss essa al'ryn ryallenush…"

She covered her ears with her forearms and screamed. Someone's hand caught her elbow and she snapped her fist upwards and slammed them hard across the jaw, felt her knuckles catch their teeth.

"Ow! Leia it's me! Calm down! It's me!"

"Luke?"

"Calm down!"

"I can't see you," she choked out. "There's someone here…"

"Why didn't you answer me? I've been shouting and shouting at you!"

"Water!"

"Water?"

"The touch-knots…"

He scooped her up as though she were bantamweight. "Hold on."

She'd been absurdly close to the campsite – within a few strides she saw the orangey glow of the half-dead coals. Luke hopped directly into the shallowest section of the spring and dropped her. Without hesitation she sank beneath the surface and began scrubbing her hands with the sand, washing her face, sputtering and coughing between dunks. Sitting up, she maneuvered herself out to where it was chin deep and stripped the bodysuit off, biting her tongue when she dragged it over her feet. She let her feet float outstretched, afraid to touch them or look at them. The tiniest self-created currents, subsurface streams caressing them, caused her to hiss.

Luke got out and tossed an armload of branches on the dying coals. Next he went over to the tent and leaned inside, collecting a few items. Finally, he returned to the bank and dropped them before stepping back into the shallowest section. It was only then that Leia noticed he was not wearing his boots either.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Your feet-"

"It's my fault. I walked right past my boots on the way out there. Less than two minutes before it does more than sting." He leaned over to rinse his mouth out. "But that's a nasty swing you have."

"I'm really sorry."

"Why did you do that?"

"Luke someone was out there with me. There's someone out there."

He turned part way into the firelight, held his hands out by his sides deep in concentration, and then let out a long slow breath. "I'm not sensing anything. I only sensed you out there before and… I heard you screaming." He waded nearer and touched her shoulder. "Seriously, are you all right?"

"I know someone was there," she insisted. "He's _there_. Try again."

"Leia, there's nothing there."

"Try harder. Maybe he ran away. Maybe he's out of range."

"He didn't run. He wasn't there."

But she'd turned her head so that only one ear heard him. The other listened to the sound of her watery movements beneath the surface. His face was a mix of shadows and angles illuminated by the fire behind him, making it difficult to see his expression or know what he was thinking. She was confused. _What's happening to me? What just happened_?

"What were you doing out there?"

"I must have been sleepwalking," she admitted miserably. "I must have sleepwalking but when I woke up I was lost. I couldn't move and someone was talking to me…I wasn't imagining things."

"Uh… well…" He straightened and pointed to the bundle on the bank. "First things first. Right now I'm worried about your feet more than anything else. I brought your cloak and the medkit if you want me to have a look."

"All right." Then she waited. Luke was apparently waiting for her to get out, while she waited for him to turn around so that she could get out. Finally she pointedly lifted her arm above the surface and flung her wet garment onto the bank.

"Oh," he murmured, turning around.

She crawled to the bank and used the buoyancy of the water and her upper body strength to heave up. Then she flipped into a sitting position so she could leave her feet dangling in the water and grabbed her cloak.

"Decent?"

"Yes."

Luke hopped up beside her and switched on the glowrod, cupped his hand beneath her right heel and lifted her foot out of the water. "Ouch," he groaned sympathetically, locking his gaze with hers. "Um… I think it's better if you don't look."

A fiery, hot poker feeling tore through her entire leg, as though he'd taken a knife and dug it into her foot. The pain radiated up her calves, over her knees, to her hips. She looked. Tattered skin dangled from the sole and arch, and watery blood streamed over his wrist, red lace slithering down his arm. Luke's elongated shadow on the surface swirled and drifted in an eerie dance, a dizzying spiral of movement, growing dimmer and she was so hot...

"_Breathe_."

Someone was shaking her shoulder. She recoiled from the light, trying to remember where she was, why she was soaking wet and lying half-naked outside.

Luke was speaking gently. "Princess, no fainting allowed. Take a deep breath."

_I didn't_, she thought – maybe tried to say, but the back of her head was on solid ground and she didn't remember lying down. _Feet_? The pain had subsided to dull throbs below her ankles. "Are you done?" Her voice sounded nasally and far away.

"No. It's only been twenty seconds. Come on." Luke eased an arm beneath her back and helped her up. "Is it better? Can you to wiggle your toes for me?"

She wiggled them obediently. "You're doing that?"

He gave his evaluation. "Second degree burns. It's more the cuts and splinters that worry me. You ground the toxins in pretty deep, but if you can move them that's a good sign. There's no nerve damage." He looked up. "Are you going to faint again?"

She took another deep breath before reaching to pull the oxygen mask away, shaking her head, and folding her arm across her stomach.

Luke began the arduous task of cleaning the splinters and thorns from her feet before applying bacta gel while she tried to keep her whimpering to a minimum. He mercifully sprayed her second foot with an anesthetic before he even started. Her thoughts slowed to a decipherable speed. What kind of accident-prone person wandered off in the middle of the night, lay down in poisonous plants, and woke up hallucinating? Who imagined themselves held down by unseen forces, who heard dream-like voices when they were awake? What had she been doing out there? "Luke?"

He tore off another strip of bandage with his teeth and said, "Uh huh?"

"Whatever you must think, I don't sleepwalk. I mean… I've never done anything like this."

"There's a first for everything," he told her, slumping back onto heels to review his bandaging. "Nope, this isn't going to work."

She paused. _How could I hear words in a language I don't speak? _She sometimes dreamed in the Alderaani dialect that they'd spoken in her father's home – though not often enough to remember the last time. Han had told her once that even though he spoke a handful of languages fluently, understood more, even Chewie spoke Basic in his dreams, though he was never sure where his voice came from. "Tol'hi'denata," she murmured, trying to reproduce the inflection accurately. "What does that mean?"

He canted his head sideways. "Yashuvhi."

"Yashuvhi? It's a word?"

"Not a word, a language. Tol'hi'denata is sort of a nickname for a child. I think - with the finer nuances of Yashuvhi description - I think that it means a blank slate, something innocent waiting to be formed. Why do you ask?"

"That's what he called me."

"Who did?"

"Whoever was there when I woke up. I couldn't…" She closed her eyes and tried to remember the rest. "Ryanush… Rayallish…Ryallenish…"

"Ryallenush?"

"That's it. Ryallenush," she announced. "You know it?"

"Mother," he said.

"You speak Yashuvhi?"

"Enough to get by in the marketplace," he said. "Quite a few migrated to Anchorhead and the vicinity about twenty years before my Uncle. I worked post harvest season on one of their farms."

"Well I've _never _heard it before today. I don't know what any of it means."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. And I didn't imagine what happened out there. Someone was out there."

"Huh." He opened and closed his mouth three times and said finally, "This is weird. You're positive you've never been anywhere you might have picked up Yashuvhi?"

"Yes." She hugged her arms around herself for warmth. "I couldn't breathe. He was talking to me and he was choking me."

"Choking you?"

* * *

_"The way they said Vader killed people. Like that. The way a Jedi could._"

Those were her words.

Luke was frantically trying to remember everything he knew about the Yashuvhi while he retraced Leia's steps. It was believed that humans had colonized their planet a few thousand years before the Expansion period began, although the original settlers were ultimately marooned and left to fend for themselves. Galactic historians theorized that they were criminals and their extended families, banished from their own homeworld, although by the time they were rediscovered the language was unknown by the linguistic experts of the galaxy. In any case, the best way to start a fight with any Yashuvhi was to insult his heritage.

There were other legends, he recalled, about an old Jedi Knight and his crew crashing on Yashuvhu during the Expansion periods. Unfortunately the natives had forgotten the skills needed for space travel, to even build a spacecraft, and instead evolved into a rich agricultural society with their own laws and version of history. Abandoned without the means to repair their craft or send a distress signal, the Jedi and his crew had been embraced by the locals. He'd listened intently to the legends when he was a boy, fascinated by anything that had to with Jedi Knights. He'd always reasoned that the legend had to have been based on real events, for when the Old Republic explorers had located the planet shortly before the Clone Wars, the number of Force Sensitive individuals had been astronomically high.

He didn't know if the Empire had made it that far during the purges, but the Yashuvhi had settled on Tatooine in droves during the Clone Wars, and others may have ventured closer to the Core.

Only a handful of outsiders had been hired to work with them, and his Uncle had more or less gotten him the job, saying if a boy had too much free time it led to trouble. As if, Luke thought wryly, he'd ever had any free time, but it had been his own money to spend as he wanted. Other than obtaining a rudimentary knowledge of the language, and how to regulate the humidifiers in their greenhouses, he hadn't learned much about them. They were deemed eccentric, schooled their children separately, and were known to be devoutly religious. Their prolific holidays were noteworthy because even the merchants would not sell their goods in the marketplace of Anchorhead on a holy day.

_Cannibalism_, his friend Fixer had told him once, making scary faces and arranging his lips so that his eyeteeth showed even with his mouth shut. _They sacrifice their own and eat them bit by bit and don't even kill them right away_. Stories like that had given him nightmares, although Fixer had a tendency to embellish and make up things. None of the Yashuvhi he'd ever met looked like they did those things, and they'd certainly been cordial enough, if not rather aloof.

But that morning, he found himself thinking of Fixer and his tales. _They start with an arm and then take a leg…_

_Ryallenush…_

_Tol'hi'denata_...

Mother.

Little one.

Why two words that were so obviously personal?

Sweeping aside the natural curtains and stepping forward, Luke thought that yes, chances a Yashuvhi Jedi had been held at the Korriban station were good. Thirty meters, while awake was a minute distance, but to have traveled that far asleep? It wasn't unheard of for people who did sleepwalk to venture from home, climb out of bed and head straight through their front door, but to the best of his knowledge those were extreme cases. What if you were on a ship? What if you opened an airlock thinking it was a door?

He stepped into another natural alcove and studied the partial footprints in the squashed touch-knots, grateful his feet were protected this time. Why hadn't the discomfort of burning feet woken her? Pain was a sure jerk back to reality, to wakefulness. How could you not feel that?

If he hadn't fallen asleep by the fire he might have caught her. Instead he'd awoken to the sound of her screams echoing from every direction, her contagious panic hampering his ability to sense her, and then when he'd found her… The inside of his lower lip was swollen from her punch, his tongue gritty as though he'd sipped scalding tea, or licked the venom from his lip after she struck him.

He continued tracing her path, the centrifugal source of her panic and terror eluding him initially, but he circled around until he discovered a depression in the soil that looked as though someone had lain there. Rich soil had been upturned, flecks of minerals native to Baskarn sparkled in the light filtering through like tiny gems. Smashed touch-knots were there too, surrounded by pools of innocuous looking jelly. He crouched and smoothed his hand across the uncontaminated soil, noting that the area disturbed was at least twice the size of her body. Maybe she'd thrashed around in her sleep. Stretching out with his senses, he attempted to pick up any trace; any evidence indicating something had been there with her. There was nothing.

She might have sensed something he didn't. It wasn't impossible.

Then why was he having such a hard time believing it?

More disturbing, he had been here, and he had somehow failed to protect her, though he didn't understand from what.

He stopped to rest his forehead against a trunk. It didn't matter what he sensed or didn't sense. The Force was not infallible. It was subject to interpretation. His gut instinct was to believe her, believe that the danger had not been imagined and that it had been as real to her as he was. His logical mind poked holes in the thought. Maybe her inability to hear, the sensation that she was choking, maybe they all had been symptoms of hysteria. It happened; it simply didn't make any sense for it to happen to his sister. Leia never got hysterical, not even when she had every right to be. She tended to withdraw, summon her strength so that she could fight.

_Ryallenush…_

_Tol'hi'denata_...

There wasn't even the perceptible teetering of light and darkness, an imbalance in the Force.

Stroking the new and scratchy stubble on his chin, Luke returned to where Leia had first awoken, carefully avoiding the touch-knots, and sank to his knees.

* * *

By early afternoon the jungle's humidity was exacerbated by the swarming insects, only more attracted to the sweat dripping down her face and neck. Leia was sure after biting her they excitedly retreated to their nests to tell all the other bloodsucking sithspawn she was on the planet, despite Luke's reassurances that they found him just as sweet. Genetically, she knew it was probably true, but they didn't seem to annoy him quite as much, and that was exasperating. She squirmed and tried in vain to get comfortable again, ignore the maddening hum, leaned forward and peeled her shirt off her back where it was sticking to the mass of blisters and inflamed skin.

Every time she tried to sleep she wound up having wheeling half-lucid dreams that her feet were on fire. _Soon it will start to wear off_, she promised herself. _If you can bear it a little while longer it will get better_.

Clad now in her fatigues and tunic, her injured feet were propped up on one of the packs while she reclined against the other. Though the wounds on her hands were superficial, and her back still needed to be looked after, Luke had told her that her feet were in desperate need of a bacta tank. Were they at the base she would have been remanded to a repulsor chair while they were immersed. Unfortunately they didn't have a portable tank; using a little creativity, he'd poured most of the rejuvenatory gel into two empty plastine food pouches and tied them around her ankles. This way her feet would be perpetually bathed in it. For a _full _day, he'd told her, and then they would see. She'd tried to argue, but it was pointless. If an infection set in she couldn't take any of the antibiotics in the medkit because they didn't know if they were safe for her under the circumstances.

Luke had resumed scouting the area for any trace of what had attacked her, though she wasn't sure whether he had gone searching again more to humor her or because he believed her. Before he left he'd asked her if she needed help with anything, _anything _being a vague offer that had galvanized her into attempting to squeeze one foot into her boot as soon as he was gone. _Big _mistake. Fortunately, she'd discovered nothing was impossible on her hands and knees, though it proved to be incredibly awkward.

To distract herself she'd itemized and dissected every item of gear. Leia had no idea how Sabaac decks fell under items necessary for survival, but they had two, stamped with the gold and black SoroSuub logo. Being bored to death was plausibly a condition of crashing SoroSuub took very seriously, but she couldn't come up with any one-man card games. Instead she'd started categorizing the local ecology on a datapad. Her first and sole entry had been, '_do not step on the touch-knots barefoot_.' Then she'd made a terrible mistake and giving in to the urge to wiggle her toes again, and wound up clenching the Conergin and Nyex, praying just holding the painkillers would magically dull the throbbing.

"Look on the bright side," Luke had told her before he left. "You've been whining and complaining that you wanted a break from the footslogging." She didn't think she'd been whining and complaining that much, but being temporarily crippled was not what she'd had in mind.

She sighed and tightened Luke's cloak around her shoulders to deter the bugs, bringing the cowl to her face and breathing deeply. After all this time the green and woodsy smells of Endor still clung to it like glue, somehow woven permanently into the fibers which kept it together. Despite all that had happened there, Endor was a source of good memories for her, a nostalgic period of victory and new life, hope. Today she wasn't above clutching threadbare cloth for its comfort value.

Her face was firmly buried in it when she heard a crackling in the brush. Grunts and garbled growls followed.

Clutching her holdout blaster more tightly beneath her leg, she looked up in time to see two creatures make their way across their campsite. Both were nearly two meters tall, covered in sleek green hair, their faces black and hairless, but definitely not humanoid, made their way through the brush. They were wearing shawls of woven grass and holding ornately carved staffs. She stared, too terrified to move, too terrified to stay still, but possessed of enough wariness to guess for the time being, not making any sudden movements was a better idea.

It took a moment for her pain-fogged brain to identify them as the Yrashu.

The smaller one picked up her brother's sleep roll and pressed it to its face. The other picked up his blaster and pointed directly at its chest, trying to pry the weapon apart. Leia prayed it didn't discharge. It sniffed it and held it out to its companion, who sniffed too, growled, and set the weapon gently on the ground.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe they knew what it was. She knew full well what the Empire was capable of doing to species they deemed below them, what they called the Abo. Hundreds of worlds had fallen to their twisted concept of Imperialism, and they sometimes massacred the original inhabitants, or devised cruel schemes to make them wholly dependent on them. More and more detailed reports had been thrown across her desk over the past few months, most coming from worlds that had been freed from the Empires' clutches. Some petitioned for membership in the New Republic, others begged them to never return to their star systems. The Yrashu, semi-sentient creatures, certainly weren't able to set forth petitions, but they had had enough of their own experiences with humans to consider them friend or foe, and if their strength was anywhere near that of a Wookiee's, she didn't stand a chance. Praying it was the former; she pressed her back harder against the wall and tried to appear harmless, smile even, without baring her teeth in case that would indicate aggression.

The smaller of the two (female she decided) came over to her and continued sniffing the air, then gathered her hair in its hands and sniffed that too.

Tremors ran up and down her spine, but the Yrashu simply clucked to itself and began touching her face with its massive hands. It was able enough to snap her neck, but surprisingly gentle. It began cooing. Leia could feel its reassurance, though she wasn't sure how. _I mean you no harm_, it seemed to be telling her. It lifted one of her hands sniffed that as well and then sniffed her neck. She tucked the holdout blaster she'd been clutching against her side beneath her legs.

"Hello," she said, for lack of a better word to introduce herself.

The creature jumped at the sound of her voice, then calmed itself and kept clucking. It picked up a half eaten ration bar and sniffed that too, then shoved the entire thing in its mouth, wrapping and all. It immediately spit it out and grunted, then reached into a fibrous pouch around its waist and withdrew several purplish leaves, apparently trying to get rid of the taste.

"I don't care for them either," Leia murmured, trying to keep her voice steady, keeping one eye on the male, who was now dismantling the cookpad. A rush of apprehension flooded her mind, worry, an, _are you okay_?

The pair dropped what they were doing and held their heads back to smell the air. If their olfactory senses were as highly specialized as Chewie's, they must know who was out there. The hair along their spine rose warily.

"I'm fine," she said, increasing the pitch of her voice in gradual increments to make sure he heard her. "I just have two friends visiting me who are very interested in what we have and know you're out there."

Her brother entered slowly. "Hello there," he said softly, making eye contact with her and nodding.

She nodded back. "Yrashu, friendly, so far."

The male growled quietly.

"We mean you no harm," Luke said, holding out his empty hand.

Both creatures ventured closer to him and began repeated the ritualistic smelling. Luke stoically forced himself to submit. If he needed to defend himself she knew he wouldn't hesitate, though he would avoid it if possible. The female licked his hand. "You said they were herbivores," he whispered.

"That's what the log said."

"Uh huh," he replied, looking for all the world as though he believed the logs to be inaccurate. "Cause they have really big teeth."

Abruptly, his hand was dropped and with a grunt and a sideways hand gesture, the female slipped past him, followed by the male. Both crouched down to drink from the spring. Then they vanished, blending into the phosphorescent foliage, green on gold, gold on green.

They both breathed a sigh of relief. "Well what do you know," Luke mused.

Leia craned her neck and peered in the direction they had disappeared. "I think they recognized our species. At least, I think they recognized the blaster. I wonder if they'll come back."

"To try and smell us to death and satisfy their curiosity," he chuckled.

They both stared into the bushes and waited. Then Luke sat next to her and shook his head regretfully. "I can't find anything. Not even a trace of anything other than you."

She pursed her lips and blew out a long breath. "Now what?"

"I can go look again," Luke offered.

"It won't do any good," she countered, though she was thinking more she'd feel safer if he stayed. Especially considering they had no idea what other sorts of visitors might come waltzing through their camp.

"No…" He caught her chin and turned her head toward him. "Leia, I believe you."

"You have no cause to."

"Call it a hunch then. Let's go through what you remember again from the beginning. The last thing you remember before you fell asleep and then…."

She sighed. "I was… wondering if Han had heard about the crash yet I think? But that was hours and hours before."

"You don't remember actually walking out there? Nothing of it?"

"I was having a nightmare right before I woke up. That's all I can recall." _Him_, she mentally amended. She tore a hunk of grass from beside her knee and threw it ineffectually against the calm air. The grasses split apart and drifted back to the ground.

He said, "I still have those too you know."

She supposed Luke said it to make her feel better but it didn't help; instead she felt irrationally angry. She gave up throwing grass and concentrated on ripping every shred of green within reach and piling the tiny strands into crisscrossing castles that would collapse with the first breeze that reached them.

"Leia, nightmares can be very real."

"Are you suggesting I _can't _tell when I'm awake or not? Because I assure you I can."

"No," he said slowly, imitating her destructive streak, uprooting the grass on the other side of him and adding it to her pile. "Do you have them often?"

Defensiveness and rage simmered in her chest. Of course she had them a lot. She expected to have them for the rest of her life. She'd watched sixty million people get blown away, been made to think she'd failed them, that she was responsible for their deaths. How could he grasp what it was like to spend years going through the names of everyone she'd ever known and wondering where they'd been, if they'd even known what was about to happen? How could he grasp how horrible is was to see someone you loved look at you, preparing to die, incapable of telling you they loved you back because if they said it, it would have made it all real? Vader had tried to destroy him, he'd _hurt _her, tortured her.

An emotional chill blasted her, and the stricken look on his face snapped her to her senses. Taking her anger out on Luke would solve nothing, and she had no idea why she wanted to, so she simply said, "Yes." He had been so kind to her lately too, bending over backwards to be considerate. "I don't want to talk about this," she decided. "I can't. My feet hurt and I can't think straight. All I know is there was someone out there. That's all I can tell you."

"_Okay_," he sighed. "Then back to where we were. I do believe you. What you heard out there, that can't be coincidental, but I can't explain anything. I wish I could." The Sabaac cards flitted into the air and shuffled themselves. "Huh… I didn't know if I could do that or not," Luke said with genuine surprise. "Want to play?"

_Why not_, she thought. _What else is there to do all day other than obsess over this_? "Can you look at my back first? It's sticking to everything."

Luke made a face. "Sticking to everything?"

"I should've let you look at it before you left."

He grabbed the medkit while she lifted the shirt over her head and covered her chest. Then she drew her hair over her shoulder.

Luke started dabbing bacta over her blisters. "You're very lucky."

"I'm lucky?"

"An unlucky person might have sat in those things."

"Oh sure, that makes me feel better. Don't worry," she snorted. "I definitely would not be asking for your help."

He leaned over and dug through the medkit for a large enough piece of gauze to protect her skin from rubbing against her shirt. Carefully taping the edges, he made her lift her arm and rotate her shoulder to make sure the gauze was firmly in place. "All set. Now…" He sat down and edged himself backward so that they were face to face again and started dealing.

She picked up her cards, holding them against her palm. Then she said quietly, "Luke, I'm afraid."

"But I'm awful," he chuckled. "Lando says even with my Force skills I'm the worst Sabaac player he's ever met."

"That's not what I meant."

He arrowed his forehead. "I know."

"I feel like something bad is going to happen but you don't know what, where, when."

"Try not to. Really, Leia," he stressed. "I'm here. In a few days we'll be at the base – a day or two more if we wait on your feet. This'll _all _seem like a bad dream."

_It already seems like it's all a bad dream. It was a bad dream_.

She picked up her hand and burst out laughing. Her brother had miraculously dealt her the Idiot's Array. "You did this on purpose?"

He brother did not look nearly as impressed with his hand. "What did I do? What did I do?"

She would have bet the bank if she had credits. "What are we playing for?"

He perused their meager belongings. "How about ration bars?"


	5. Chapter 5

~Chapter 5~

Growing up on a desert world, Luke was accustomed to the sandstorms and more vicious gravelstorms that unpredictably arose on the horizon, spying them through his macrobinoculars in time to help his uncle secure their bumpout dwelling before they hit. A few occasions he'd outraced them in his landspeeder, knowing certain death befell those caught in the treacherous cyclones of sand and stone, ravaged skeletons all that remained of their unfortunate victims once the desert carrion got to them.

But it never rained.

In school he read about rainy seasons and torrential downpours, but on Tatooine the cloudless skies never darkened, and the twin suns unrelenting rays evaporated the smallest drops of dew after first sunrise. At times the whole concept of water showering from the heavens was as difficult to fathom as was its colder cousin, snow.

By now however, he was a well-seasoned galactic traveler, having seen more than his share of both, and the heavy drops pitter-pattering noisily on their tent awoke him before the first dim light reached started creeping across the floor. Rain gear wasn't an item he remembered seeing.

He held four fingers up against the sloped canvas ceiling. Four days left. Four days before they reached the base. Four days before they discovered if Home Fleet knew who was responsible for the _Razion's Edge_. Four days before a real meal. Four days until a hot shower. Four days before he could sleep on a real bed. Four days before his sister had to deal with Han, if he'd come, and knowing Han, Luke knew he must be near.

_Four days_, he thought, curling one finger down, _and three mysteries_.

The first was what had happened the other morning. Leia's feet were healing well, an odd florescent pink with misshapen layers of new skin, marble-like, as though they'd been unevenly peeled off. She insisted they looked worse than they felt and that a badly shaken psyche was the extent of the damage.

The second and third mysteries were alive and well, far enough away to remain hidden, yet so alien he'd been unable to sort through their emotions or motivations. They were simply... _near_. Ever since that morning.

A gust of wind caused the trees above to shed accumulated rain with a loud clatter, fibrillations rippling the shelter. The noise accomplished what he had not as of yet, had the heart to do.

Leia came awake and groaned. "Please tell me I'm not hearing that."

"Oh you are," he chimed in. "Pitter, patter, pitter, patter." He cupped a hand over his ear and pretended to listen closely. "Do you hear what its saying." He lowered his voice. "I am here to make your life miserable."

"Huh. I thought you had a monopoly on making my life miserable."

"Me and the touch-knots."

"Then I'm doomed," she replied, elbowing him before she swept the blankets over her head and slumped back again. "Wake me up when it stops."

For her sake (and because he wasn't looking forward to a day of rain) he wished lassitude were a state they could afford. But it wasn't.

"What a great idea," he assented, over-excitedly on purpose. "We'll stay here – all day - because you know if it's raining first thing in the morning it's going to see how unhappy we are and not want to quit there. And… Let's see… I'll give you a rundown on the finer aspects of moisture farming, since you always say you find it so interesting-"

"I'm up. I'm up," she said quickly.

"You don't want to learn-"

"NO." She bolted upright again, then closed her eyes and swallowed.

"Open?" he asked, unclipping the door. He knew that look by now. Having an empty stomach first thing in the morning didn't agree with her. Nor did sitting up too fast, hiking without rests, rations that began with the word 'insta' and a few other forgotten culprits.

She scurried over his legs into the rain, dragged the vestibule over her head and crouched with her head between her knees. An early morning false alarm.

"You'll feel better if you eat," he encouraged. He dug around at the foot of the tent for the last container of carbosyrup. The sooner she got something down the sooner they'd be on the way.

"I know, I know," she mumbled, holding out her hands out and let the rain fall into to her palms. She drew them back under the flap and wiped at her face. "Have you ever tried to eat when you feel nauseous?" Regarding the carton as though it contained poison and fumbling with the seal, she said, "I feel like I've been gassed with T-238. And I wish you would shoot me and get if over with."

"No one's shooting anyone today," he assured her.

She swallowed a tentative sip, grimaced and slumped over outside of the vestibule's protection.

"Tomorrow if it's this bad I'll blast you first thing. Any preference as to which blaster I should use."

"Ha, ha. Very funny Luke. I thought you'd make more of an effort to talk me out of it."

"I learned long ago it was useless to talk you out of anything."

Next she said, "I wonder how much worse it was for our mother with two of us."

Watching the rain splatter across Leia's coveralls then, he _knew _that she had been thinking about their mother a lot lately. He could hear it in her voice, hear it in the way she brought it up casually mid-conversation, as if she'd been wanting to but hadn't found the opportunity just yet. His heart did a little half-twist in his chest. "I don't know." He lifted an arm and tugged the vestibule out as far as he could. "It's raining on you."

"I like it. And we're going to be out in it all day. What difference does it matter." She shrugged without moving to sit up. "I've been thinking about her a lot lately."

He searched her face, trying to read more, sought out her emotions. He sensed… _grief_. Under the circumstances it would be quite natural for her thoughts to dwell in the past. "Have you?"

"I keep trying to remember her face," she murmured. "What she looked like. It seems important to me to remember."

Whenever he pictured his mother, tried to draw from ancient memories that were more of his own creation than real, he saw Leia. "You look more like her than I do, right?"

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. "Her eyes, her hair." With a sigh she finally sat up and looked him straight the eyes. "You didn't get her eyes, but…" Her gaze dropped to his mouth. "Maybe her smile."

He gave her his best cheerful smile. "Like this?"

"The beard wrecks any feminine resemblance." She frowned and reached for the carbosyrup again. "She was so…_sad_. That's what I remember most. And then… Then I keep thinking that it wasn't the _way_ she talked to me... not anything I saw in her face… it was more... I think I could _feel _it."

Luke thought about that for a moment. Children were so susceptible to negativity, and her memories of her mother were a perfect example. Children had the uncanny ability to see through adults. They picked up on all sorts of emotions, deceit, mistrust, but a Force sensitive child – he or she would pick up everything, unfiltered, without understanding why. He had, after all.

"Do you think that's possible?" she asked, plaintively now. "That I knew?"

"Yes. Without a doubt. Do you think your father knew you were Force sensitive?"

_Or had they just said, "Here, you have to take this child." Had it been Ben? Another Jedi? Had their mother been a friend of Bail's? Who would they have been_?

"I mean, think about it, you must have events or moments in your childhood you look back on now and recognize the Force at work, influencing you or your actions without your knowing why."

"No," she decided. "I don't think he did, although… there were signs. My favorite household guard was killed at our private docking bay when I was six. It was one of those, 'wrong place at the wrong time' events. A faulty engine sparked an explosion and I _knew_. I locked myself in my bedroom closet crying until my Aunt Celly found me. She didn't know what to make of it, what I kept telling her. Then when my father got home that night… he kept saying I must have heard it on the holovids but I didn't."

"Ben wouldn't have told him because he knew your father wouldn't be able to hide the truth from Vader," Luke murmured. "They probably crossed paths on numerous occasions on Coruscant." He frowned at his inward reflection and said, "I'm certain Owen and Beru knew, but the chances of Vader finding them were so remote, and Ben was close enough to keep an eye on me."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Huh," he shrugged. "There were a few times I guess, I knew things I shouldn't have… like where my Uncle had misplaced his tools, or… once I woke up everyone up – I didn't know why – I just kept telling my Uncle something was outside. It turned out to be Sand People preparing to swarm us in a surprise raid. That… the advance warning saved us, I think. It was the only time my Uncle wasn't furious at me for acting strangely… that's what _he _used to call it."

"Oh Luke. That must have been so hard for you."

He sighed and leaned back. Leia's natural capacity toward compassion touched him. "He didn't know any better, he was trying to do the best he could. As an adult I understand that, or try to understand."

"He was trying to protect you."

"Yeah. He was."

She hugged her stomach. "It won't be like that for us. Not with a Jedi Uncle Luke."

_Jedi Uncle Luke_...

He covered his smile with his hand. The crooning was rather endearing, although at the moment Leia looked least like the politician she was than he'd ever seen her. "I don't even know what sort of guidelines the Jedi used to follow with their offspring. I guess we'll figure that out as we go along."

"I guess we will."

He thought her 'we' was a good sign, a very good sign. Opting not to push that line of conversation, he picked another unpopular topic instead. "You haven't told me about Han yet. I'd sort of... well, like to know what happened before I see him."

"It's between us," she said.

Luke detected the note of dismissal in her voice.

_And it affects all of us_, he thought.

"It's difficult to explain," she said plaintively. "It's complicated and…oh..." She shoved the carton into his hands and heaved her body up. "Oh, this isn't working. I'll be over there."

"That's okay," he mumbled to himself, eyeing the tent and their gear wearily. "I'm a master at decamping on my own." 

* * *

The dismal day only worsened.

"There's no way we're going to get down there," she judged with a glance.

Luke peered forward again and tried to ignore her agitation. She'd barely spoken to him for most of the day, resorting to monosyllabic responses when needed, and now that she was speaking, it was to dispute him. He continued peering over the cliff and frowned, at her mood and at their impending challenge. The white wall dropped indefinitely into a ravine – or valley – he couldn't tell in the poor visibility. If they'd arrived at this point yesterday, it would have been a good vantagepoint. He might have even been able to spy the mountain they were aiming for. But as it was with the fog and rain...

"Leia, it'll take us a day or two longer if we go around it."

"But how, are you planning on-"

"Levitating us down," he finished, shaking his head. "Not unless you want to end up splattered at the bottom." He could make out the treetops about thirty meters below, and their expanse stretched as far as he could see left and right, so there was no telling if they'd find an easier way down in either direction. The drop-off was steep, but rocky enough that they should be able to scale it, although the packs would make it difficult. "We've got syntherope. We'll just tie it to..." He looked around for a strong anchor, and decided one of roots dangling over the side in hapless pursuit of soil would do. "This. It'll work."

She dug out the coil of rope from her pack and held it up. "It's not long enough. It won't work."

"We'll manage." He took it and tied a slipknot around the root, and then tugged on it to make sure it was secure. "I'll go first," he said, sliding his legs over the side and twining the rope around his hands. "When I yell, you go."

Appearing miffed at having been left out the decision planning, she lectured, "Well, be careful!"

"I will." He started his descent. Of course it was much more slippery than he'd anticipated. The soles of his boots slid off the wet stone, the skin of his fingers was quickly scraped raw. He gave up on trying to brace his body away from it and instead tried to ignore the jagged rocks scraping his chest. The gusts of wind were so fierce the pellets of rain felt more like needles than water. As she'd warned, the diminishing rope looked not long enough, but he'd assumed there would be some sort of ledge or abri. So long as he reached it before the line ended, or else he'd have to climb back up, _with _his pack on. A wiser man would have let her send the pack down afterwards.

A level outcrop materialized just above the canopy, almost wide enough to hold them both with about one meter of rope to spare. He shouted to her. There was no audible response, but the rope swung alive from side to side like a dancing snake and he reached out to steady it for her while he watched for her feet. He held his breath until he saw them, and then held it again until she was within reach, grabbing her waist and holding her to him.

"Wha...what n...n...now," she shivered, red-cheeked with windburn.

It was cold, so high up with wind and rain. He mentally envisioned the knot he'd made, undoing the loose end of the rope. It was simple to picture, slide the end through this loop, back around and... _Pull_. He caught the end in his free hand and searched for a new anchor along the slick rock face, then decided he'd have to create one. "Can you scoot down?" he asked.

She crouched and locked her arms behind his knees while he ignited his lightsaber and drove it through a protuberant section of rock, creating a fist-sized tunnel round enough to pass the rope inside. Once he'd coaxed it through, he retied the slipknot and descended again, thinking, _just drop through those boughs and hope there's no thousand-meter gully hiding on me_.

It was slower going, curving his body around the highest leafy branches, unable to see down or up once immersed in them. They all twisted into awkward positions to accommodate the rock wall they'd been forced against, creating a claustrophobic realm of wood, dark leaves and cliff side. It felt more like a gymnastic exercise than a descent, but eventually, he touched his feet along sloped earth over the rock between the branches, tipped precariously toward the jungle's floor yet another fifty meters below. There was nothing he could do but lie flat and hang on and there was no chance Leia could hear him if he shouted, so he sent out a mental prod to _go ahead _.

And waited.

And _waited_.

Fifteen minutes later, he still couldn't see her, though she was swearing loudly.

"How's it going?" he shouted into the canopy.

The response was muted but moments later he sighted a leg and heard another swear, Corellian at that. Then another leg appeared. The rope was too far away for her to possibly be attached to it. He cupped his hand around his mouth and shouted again. "Are you all right?"

"You can see me?" she called. Her torso and head were above the 'y' of the branches she was strung between.

"Yup." _Is she stuck_?

In response, she yelled back. "I can't hold on and I can't see anything."

Watching her legs scissor as though treading air to stay aloft, he gauged the distance between them. He wrapped the rope several times around his arm and leaned out as far as he could. "Okay, let go."

"Are you crazy?"

"I'll get-"

Leaves and water showered onto his head in the commotion. He swiftly caught the strap of her backpack, jerking her in the same motion backward onto the slope with a thud. She groaned and struggled to roll onto her stomach, but only succeeded in sliding further down with nothing to hold on to. He dragged her up beside him so that she could reach the rope, then released her and relaxed his shoulder while he caught his breath. "I'm afraid to ask how long ago you lost the line," he huffed.

She rested her head and caught her breath too. "Thanks. Let's just say solo climbing with this much weight isn't easy and…" Her eyes followed the course laid out below them. "Oh my. That's still a long way down."

"Yeah it is." The ground looked odd from so high above, almost as though it was moving and shifting, black and devoid of shrubs or plants. The trees were gnarled and stockier than the others he'd seen. More like... Dagobah. And what he'd thought was ground was not. It was water. It was swamps.

Leia was saying, "It looks awfully muddy down there..."

"We're going to get a lot muddier than this," he interjected.

Deciding they shouldn't attempt this without the rope, he searched for some purchase for them while he set it free, but found none. The boughs they'd climbed down through were now out of reach, and the twisted trunks stretched far enough away from the slope that he'd have to take a flying leap to get to one, and even then his arms weren't long enough to stretch around. Time for plan B. "Uh...what do you think about sliding?"

"You're kidding?" She peered down. "Luke, I can guarantee you my physician wouldn't recommend this."

He winced. It was too late to turn back. "And I suppose you have a better idea?"

"I _did_. You weren't listening to-"

He flipped onto his side and lifted his free hand. They could argue or get this over with. "Wrap your arms and legs around me, I can slow us down."

She looked fearfully down, up, then at him. "Are you sure?"

Rolling his eyes, he let the rope slip through his fingers a little. "One...two..."

"Okay, okay," she muttered, scooting over.

He pushed himself up a few inches so that she could get a leg and arm beneath him and around his back, and when she had him in a tight stranglehold, he let go of the rope. The Force embraced them, enhanced the drag caused by his heels and the bulky shape of his pack. The mud was as slick as oil and he hadn't taken into account how much more difficult it would be to slow down two people. Midway down they careened out of control. Changing tactics, he no longer sought to slow them and instead concentrated on steering them straight for the water and away from the trunks waiting to pulverize them at this speed. Right before they began free falling over the edge of the slope, he shouted "let go," and shoved her away.

The water slammed into his chest so hard it knocked the wind from him, and it took him a moment to ascertain which direction was up in the blackness. When his head broke the surface and he gulped air into his burning lungs, coughing up fetid water and sludge in between breaths. Leia emerged beside him, neck deep, choking out the same sickening fluid, murky with decaying plant life.

"See... I told you we could do it," he coughed.

"If that's what you call slowing us down," she sputtered, "I'd hate to see what full speed is like." Warily, she studied their new environment, and then screwed her eyes shut. "I can't decide whether to start screaming or just outright kill you for this."

Thick brown vines draped down and between the trunks rising from the water, and a variety of serpents dangled amidst them, flicking their tongues in curiosity at whoever had entered their domain. It was too dark to make out much else. A meter long watersnake danced across the water, pausing to hiss at them before continuing on its way.

Making her start screaming was a tempting idea. It could scare off everything in the immediate vicinity - or make them all swim over to see what it was. He hurried forward to grasp her hands, sharing her distaste and wariness for the swamp. There was something about swamps in general that gave him chills. They reeked of evil. Nothing beautiful ever grew inside them, the life that flourished tended to repulse him, and he remembered quite vividly that something enormous had almost eaten Artoo on Dagobah... He tried not to think about draigon slugs, meter long leeches, swamp monsters or worse even, that something capable of taking off his leg with one bite was swimming his way already. With that disturbing thought he unclipped his lightsaber and activated it beneath the surface, just in time to slash at a long tentacle creeping toward his leg in the eerily greenish illuminated water. "Let's get out of here," he said. "As fast as we can..."

"I think, "she said, growing paler by the second, "That I just felt something swim by my leg."

* * *

"Commander Halla Ettyk," Han boomed loudly as he entered the makeshift and decidedly spartan office hidden in the back of the control center. The office was comprised of two chairs, a desk, three console units and a few light fixtures. "What a surprise to see you here."

The dark haired woman who served as a member of Airen Cracken's counterintelligence unit looked up from her pile of paperwork and regarded him with un-welcoming grey eyes. Halla Ettyk had last served as the New Republic's prosecutor at Tycho Celchu's trial for his alleged treason and Corran Horn's death. It was later discovered that Corran Horn was alive and well, and the real traitor within Rogue Squadron was identified. She and the New Republic had both issued formal apologies to Celchu, but the public embarrassment had yet to fade from the holovid headlines. "General Solo. On the contrary I'm not surprised to see you here."

Undeterred by her facetiousness, Han sank without invitation into the deep emerald chair across from her desk. Her hair was arranged neatly in a sleek coronet of braids, the current fashion among Alderaanian women. He knew very well who'd started the trend, felt his heart seize up. "Han," he prompted. "And congratulation on the promotion."

"Han then. Thank you, belatedly. It was some time ago."

"Sorry to have missed the inaugural celebration."

"It was very low-key," she corrected. "As for you these days... You were charged with insubordination if I've read the reports correctly." One over plucked eyebrow arched. "Accusing a decorated Admiral of, how did you so eloquently put it, 'bashing out his own targeting system' in a room full of his inferiors."

He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully as if it were news to him. "Did I really say that?"

"The charges were dropped under orders from Madine," she clarified. "Not because the Admiral has a forgiving nature. Now what are you doing here?"

"I thought it was time we had a chat?"

"The charges were dropped. You don't need a lawyer."

"That's not what I'm here to chat about."

Her voice dropped to a hush. "Solo, you know I can't talk to you."

"Halla, history is about to repeat itself and you know it."

If the dig bothered Halla she hid it well. "Has it occurred to you that I'm here to make sure it doesn't?" she said calmly.

He shook his head. "You know as well as I do that Luke wouldn't have done this, that Leia wouldn't have had anything to do with it."

She skirted a glance into the passageway. "If you're here on a fishing expedition I can't give you what I have," she said tersely.

He got up and closed the door, making sure it clicked. Then he waited a moment for footsteps outside. There were none. "Not on the record," he persisted, returning to his seat. "Off the record."

"Even off the record…" She sighed and nervously twirled her writing stylus between her fingers. "My hands are tied. You're here strictly to assist in the search and recovery, not to assist in the investigation, and you certainly can't claim to be objective."

"It's not even objectivity that's at issue," he countered. "It's simple fact. They had nothing to do with it."

"Leia Organa, yes" Halla replied, nodding. "But we can't rule out Skywalker."

"Based on what?"

"It's confidential."

He was so sick of having the words _classified _or _confidential _thrown at him he almost snapped. Leia had said once that despite her role in the Celchu fiasco, Halla was an honest woman and could be trusted. Now he was desperately hoping she had been right. "After all these years I'd say I know as much about Luke and Leia as anyone," he breathed.

"Of course you do," she agreed.

"I'd be inclined to think I know anything SpecForce thinks they do." It was hint and as near to admitting he had information as he was willing to go. At best he was hoping for a little game of you _tell-me-what-you-know-and-I-might-tell-you-what-I-know_, though he had no intention of letting it go that far.

"There's no way you could," she said curtly, holding up her hand. "And if I tell you anything, you'll brief them before we get a chance to question them. Don't bother to patronize me by suggesting otherwise." She pushed over a wide-screen datapad with a cartographic view of the areas surrounding the base across her desk. "I know you're heading out with the scout teams tomorrow morning aren't you?"

"Bright and early."

"They're sending out three teams, right?"

"Yeah," Han said, mildly surprised she knew already. He'd left the planning session directly before coming to see her, and no one had passed him on his way in.

The HOS had traced the last known trajectory of the escape pod to a hundred kilometer square area about a two weeks hike from here. Thus far, all efforts to find the pod had been fruitless. Assuming the pair was within a few days of the base, they'd decided to send out teams down to meet them.

"And you're with the…" She studied the readout, tapped the tip of her stylus on the screen. "The center team?"

"Right again," he replied. "Luke has an uncanny sense of direction. If they're on their way I say they'll be heading straight for the north peak. It's the most direct course from where they went down."

"A Jedi's sense of direction," she mused. She picked up another datapad and scrolled through the pages. "Don't they call that area the 'memory wipe' zone?"

"I've heard the rumors. Everyone's equipment fails and erases his or her data. They end up disorientated or lost. It's probably some electro-magnetic variance in the soil they haven't picked up yet and figured out how to compensate for."

"Well I agree that's probably where you'll find them. And we simply can't take the chance you decide to brief them independently."

Han leaned in and rested his elbows on either side of the datapad. "And when we do find them?" he chided. "What am I supposed to tell them? That for the last two weeks they've been headed for an arrest?"

"It's strictly preventative custody until this matter is sorted out," she clarified. "There _is _a difference."

"Preventative custody," he exclaimed. "Yeah… That's gonna go over real well. I'd hate to be the security officer in charge of Skywalker's detainment."

"We're working out the logistics as best we can. And…" She leaned forward, matching his tone. "If Skywalker is innocent I'm sure he'll comply. He'll want this to be cleared up as soon as possible."

Except, no one around here seemed to think he was. Furthermore, no one, not even Madine, would tell him why. Mon Mothma was away from Home Fleet and out of contact. Since being oblique was getting him nowhere, he decided to be blunt. "Halla what does Rieekan have on him?"

She sighed and shook her head.

"Damn it, Halla -"

Abruptly, she eased out her chair and headed for the low fridge unit in the corner. "Would you care for a beverage? Water, one of those mystery fruit juices they're so fond of here?"

He was so taken aback by her civility in the face of his battering he merely nodded.

"Water or juice?" she repeated.

"Water."

She returned with two glasses and a pitcher, filled both glasses halfway and handed him one. "You know I'm from Alderaan, right?"

"Everyone does." He'd never had more than a few fleeting cross-room glances with Halla outside Leia's offices, but it was common knowledge. Everyone had heard of the star criminal prosecutor, hugely successful on Alderaan, off planet to cross-examine with a witness when the _Death Star_ had destroyed it.

"Well, we actually have more in common than you think."

"We do, huh?"

"Did I ever tell you my father was from Socorro?"

_Okay_, Han thought. _This is way off topic_. Socorro had been settled by Corellians a few thousand years back, and was a giant volcanic ash ball with next to no natural resources. He wouldn't go so far as to say that left them with much in common. "Really?" he asked, thinking he'd play along for a few moments. "Then you've got some Corellian blood running though you." _Diluted_, he amended.

"Half. My father attended the University of Aldera. That's where he met my mother. After he finished his schooling he decided to stay on Alderaan, though his missed his home, told the old stories when I was growing up. He made Socorro sound like a paradise."

"Nothing changes perspective like a few decades."

"Ever been there?"

"A few times. "

"I had a chance to see it for myself a few years ago," she told him. "My father used to say, _ofax ets burrin tehn_, but I never understood the expression until I visited."

_"The air is too heavy here,"_ he translated. "That's weather," he told her. "Have a windy day you need a ventilator to keep from inhaling the ash and whatever the factories spew out."

She sipped her water and stared him straight in the eye over the brim of her glass. "Personally, I thought the air there was too polluted."

"You weren't used to it. You didn't grow up there. Places like that you've got to grow up there to be used to it."

"Alderaan was very clean. The government strictly regulated the industrial emissions. Visitors always remarked on how pristine the air was."

_Why_, Han thought, _does she have this fixation with air_? He took a deep breath. The air was fine, a little stale from being recycled, but perfectly safe. "So uh… where did you go on your visit to Socorro?"

"Madra," she replied. "It's at the base of the Rym Mountains."

"Madra," he repeated. He'd only seen travelogues. "Well, it's supposed to be beautiful there but I've never been. I've only ever been to Vakeyya."

"On business?" she asked, seeming genuinely interested and without a trace of guile.

He almost laughed. Vakeyya was a smuggler's haven, but she wouldn't necessarily know it. Not many outside of the orders did. "Yes, business. But you enjoyed your stay?"

"Yes, aside from the air, as I was saying. My father was planning a return visit when Alderaan was destroyed. He hadn't been there in over twenty years. I guess I went back for him… though at the time I thought I wanted to see where he came from, what my heritage was all about."

"I'm sorry Halla," he said, no longer playing at small talk. "I take it you two were close." He took another deep breath. _Air_?

The prosecutor imitated him, making her inhale more of an exaggerated sigh as though she was remembering her deceased parent.

_What in the god_'_s names is going on_, Han wondered? _The air is too heavy here_… Well, off world, Socorrans used the expression to describe worlds where the air was dangerous, methane based, too low in oxygen. _Dangerous, dangerous_, Han thought, rapping his knuckles on the edge of her desk. _But she can't mean to breathe. To talk_? He looked overhead at the ceiling and studied it, moving from each corner of the tiny office, down the walls, to the light fixtures. They were being bugged? And Halla…

Halla knew the details of his meeting already didn't she? He started looking around for some sort of audio feed on her desk.

"You're right," she said nodding her head slowly and following his gaze. "We were very close."

Suddenly, Han found himself struggling for words to make the conversation as casual as possible. "He was a good man?"

"Yes, he was a good man. Honest, patriotic to his adopted home world, caring, the sort of father who believed in allowing us – my brother and I - to make our own mistakes without stepping in until we were over our heads."

"Or he liked to let you learn the hard way."

"Perhaps. We could never hide anything from him. Believe me, I tried, and he always knew what we were up to, always managed to catch us red handed and then he had a saying for everything." She smiled. "_Kas tulisha abia al port il ke_'_dem_. That was his favorite."

_Chaos opens the door to opportunity and fool_? While her vocabulary and syntax were off, Han got the gist. "Sorry, I'm a little rusty. I can't remember that one."

She shook her head. "Forgive me. I've digressed. My mind was wandering before you even arrived. Today is, or would have been his sixtieth birthday."

He considered asking her to take a stroll to the _Falcon _to where they could talk in private, but that would arouse too much suspicion. Even supposing whoever was listening in had a linguistic background in Old Corellian, they were skating on thin ice.

_Someone in the New Republic counterintelligence believes this was a set up too and thinks they can flush out whoever did it_.

"My condolences," managed, wondering if Ley'kel or Rieekan even knew. He doubted it. Not if whoever was in charge wanted the investigation to appear legitimate and if they were bugging everything. He caught Halla pointed to her desk chrono, took the hint. "I should get going."

"I'm sorry I can't be more help."

"Right," he said, pushing himself up. For good measure he decided not to sound _too _pleased with how their meeting had gone. "Know that you're making a mistake."

"I'm doing my job Han," she retorted.

"Yeah sure," he snapped on his way out. "The Empire was big on that excuse."

It wasn't until he was almost at his quarters that he started wondering if today actually was her father's birthday. 

* * *

It was dark.

By the time the scant light that poked its way through the tree coverage began to wane, Luke had no choice but to admit that they were going to be stuck overnight and he was starting to agree with his sisters repeated claims that this _had _been a stupid idea, that they should have gone around the long way. After scouting for a half-decent place to stop, they selected one on a tiny island of ground between two large trees that looked like the calcified Gnarltrees on Dagobah. There was a large enough space between two exposed roots for two people to fit, and the curve of the trunk partially blocked the rain. Luke half-expected Yoda and his gimer stick to magically materialize in the mists.

The prospect of spending the night out here was so dismal, even Leia had given up berating him, collapsing over her pack and shivering while she wiped at the rivulets of greenish water streaming down her face and neck.

He did the same and scraped his nails along the fuzzy yellow fungi carpeting the trees. It was strange. His senses were going haywire, his danger sense tingled without reprieve, and some overactive part of his brain was thinking they'd magically been transported to a world he knew. A scaly tail flicked up into the air beside them, then slapped against the water and vanished.

Leia jumped and tucked her arms and legs into her as closely as possible away from the edges if their island, blaster in hand.

He held his lightsaber ready. "We'll be all right here," he assured her, "unless you want to keep going in the dark."

"No," she muttered between chatters.

He shrugged, sighed, and flipped his lightsaber around in his hand, watching her huddle and shiver. Then he debated whether it would be worth it to change into dry clothes for a few hours or at least end the sloshing and squishing in his boots. He opted to do neither. "We could sit together," he offered. "It'd probably be a lot warmer than freezing at opposite ends."

"I'm soaking wet."

"And I'm dry?" He held up an arm, squeezed the sleeve of his coveralls and let the water drip onto his lap.

She sighed. "What's the difference? We'll probably be dead before the sun comes up. We're sitting bait."

"No we won't…" The scaly tail flipped out of the water again, slamming down so hard a cascade of water rose and came down on them. He dug a glowrod out of his pack and hung it from a broken branch just above his head. Visibility was nil, even with the glowrod's strong beam. It had the effect of making the shadows more menacing, by pointing out how much they _couldn't _see. "Come sit over here," he encouraged again. "I think I know a trick or two."

"Warm tricks?" she asked hopefully.

He nodded, and made room for her to squeeze herself beside him. With one arm wrapped around her he focused his energies on magnifying his body heat, trapping it around them so that they were enclosed in a small bubble of force generated warmth. She slumped idly with him for a while, then her chin nodded, bobbed, until it relaxed against his shoulder. He thought maybe she'd fallen asleep, but he didn't dare do the same. The tail didn't reappear, but he knew that several hungry reptiles were watching them. Their greedy eyes gleamed in the shadows like phosphorous jewels. He kept his thumb on the activator of his lightsaber.

He had silent conversations with the child in her womb.

_Who will you look like, he wondered? Who will you be like_?

He tried to picture Leia pregnant and huge, but she was so slender and small against him it was impossible. How long would it be before he could feel it kicking against his hand. In some cultures the delivery was a family celebration, in others, one of those occasions where men were cloistered away from women as though they'd do more harm than good by being present. He had no idea what sort of views Alderaan had held, had never actually seen anything give birth, but found himself hoping Leia would want him to be there and share it with her.

He thought of his aunt and uncle and wondered why they'd never had any children of their own. He didn't remember a household tinged with regret; both of them were too pragmatic to have wasted time ruing over what wasn't meant to be. Still, he recalled his aunt looking wistfully through his outgrown clothes as she'd packed them for a charity drive in Anchorhead. He'd been around ten or so, and wanted nothing to do with clothes that didn't fit or childhood stories about his first words, determined to _grow up _as soon as possible. His aunt had packed the items away, then given him a huge hug and told him it was hard to believe he'd ever been so small. Maybe she'd been mourning the end of his childhood. Maybe she'd been sad because there were never going to be any more infants to cuddle and hold. Fifteen years later, he had no idea.

Out of the darkness came Leia's voice. "There's a spider right below your left knee."

He looked, saw the webby legs lifting, and used his prosthetic hand to gingerly pluck it off his leg.

"If it bites," she warned…

"It'll hit wires," he reminded her. He set it on a low branch over it his head. It eagerly scampered upward in pursuit of a new home.

Leia reached over and traced a ragged fingernail across his synthflesh knuckles. "What does it feel like? Is it different?"

He flexed and opened his prosthetic hand. It had taken him almost a year to get used to it, but by now it was so much a part of him that concentrating on it jarred him with a novel sense of unfamiliarity. Like new all over again. "It feels like pins and needles almost worn off, but not quite there yet." Then he said, "I thought you were asleep. You should try and get some sleep."

"We had a fight," she admitted quietly. "He threatened to leave and I told him to go right ahead and he did."

He almost asked "_who_" before he remembered.

"I thought he was bluffing," she added. "I didn't think he'd actually do it."

Luke unconsciously started clamping his thumb down, then stopped. "What was the fight about?" _This time_.

"I was going to Tyshapahl. He didn't want me to go."

"Tyshapahl?" Tyshapahl had joined the Alliance of Free Worlds before it was restructured into the New Republic so there was little need for a diplomatic presence. "Whatever for?"

"They were commemorating a memorial to the victims of the massacre and invited a New Republic representative. I volunteered."

_Massacre_? Then he remembered. It had occurred before he joined the Alliance. A peaceful demonstration had been staged the day the Sector Moff arrived and Vader had ordered him to use force if necessary to put an end to it. Upwards of five thousand people had been killed that day. "Someone else could have gone," he reminded her. He didn't go out of his way to avoid reminders of his father's crimes, but he didn't volunteer for them.

"It was important for us to be present Luke. But I didn't… end up going."

"Good."

She leaned up and out of the half embrace. "Why _good_? Why do you say it like that?"

"Well why didn't Han want you to go?"

The flicker of hostility waned. "He wanted me to go away for a while."

"With him?"

"No," she retorted sarcastically. "He thought I should maroon myself at the resort of his choosing without him."

Ignoring the insincere bite, he said, "You decided to go to Tyshapahl instead of going of on vacation?"

"No – I mean we hadn't planned any sort of vacation yet. It was just an idea."

"Why didn't you? You could have."

"It's not that simple."

"Sure it is," he said. "They would let you go, you merely haven't asked."

"No." She shook her head. "It's not all about needing a break. It was more for personal reasons." Her own words caused her to shake her head harder. "Not personal the way you're probably assuming… or… I don't know. Maybe that was part of it. We've both been so busy."

"Mmmm." He dug his arm under hers and hoisted her up to keep her from sliding off.

She didn't say anything else for few minutes. When she murmured it was so low that Luke had to strain to hear her. "Once upon a time we were a bunch of idealists who believed we could change the galaxy for the better."

_Yes, yes we were_, he thought, failing to see what this had to do with Han or their relationship. He'd heard the line before, many, many times. It was accredited to a Senator from Kuat, one of the first politicians to publicly speak against Palpatine and his New Order. The speech had gone down in history as a pivotal turning point, marking the nascent development of the movement against the Empire. Luke knew most of it by heart, as did most people who'd joined the Rebellion. _Once upon a time we were a bunch of idealists who believed we could change the galaxy for the better…And then, my friends, we awoke to discover_…

"Do you ever miss the craziness of the past few years? Never knowing what was going to happen or if we'd win, but so determined to try we weren't going to give up while we had breath in our body."

The query stirred a glut of memories. He thought carefully. Miss it? No. After Mrlsst he'd decided he'd had enough. Being responsible for his own life was one thing, but having others under his command perish in battle…

It had been more responsibility than he'd wanted.

Being made a General had been more of a curse than a blessing. But he knew what she meant. War could be therapeutic. It offered an external focus for grievances, anger, justified the need for revenge. His aunt and uncle were fresh on his mind, and Tyshapahl's innocents, but there were Ghorman, Ralltir and countless other planets that had suffered similar _demonstrations_. Countless Alliance recruits claimed parents, brothers, sisters, lovers and friends among the numbers the Empire had destroyed, murdered or made to disappear. "We dedicated our lives to it," he said, tightening his arm. "I guess… it's been the only cathartic outlet we've had. But back to Han." Han was a safer topic. "He thought going to Tyshapahl was bad idea, and that you should take some time for yourself - with him - for _personal _reasons. And when you wouldn't he took the Sumitra assignment."

"Yes," she said. "That about sums it up."

"And you haven't spoken to him since?"

"No."

Luke was puzzled. Solo would not have backed her into a corner unless he felt like he had no choice, and even then his actions, _leaving_, were drastic. He almost let it go. He stared at the viridescent, almost prismatic mists, heard a splash a few meters away, and felt the death of whatever had been and sensed the excited bloodlust of whatever had found a meal. Leia watched with him. He thought, that people so often said 'I'm fine,' when they didn't mean it, when they wanted the burden of initiating troubles to rest on another's shoulders. And she had brought this up, out here no less, where there was nowhere she could go. "Care to elaborate?"

"I don't know what else to tell you," she mumbled, blowing at drying wisps of hair tickling her forehead. "Unless you want a mercenary's take on psychoanalysis?"

"How about plain old Han Solo's?" he suggested, trying to sound cheerful. "Han's insight is unique."

"It's scary." She breathed out, breathing back in deeply as though she was working up courage. "I supposed he'd say he doesn't think I've been handling things very well."

Warning bells sounded in the back of his mind. He shifted his leg to escape whatever was digging into his thigh, and thought of her nightmare. "Alderaan?"

"It's part of it."

"Vader?"

"Sure." Her voice was oddly detached.

He withered inside at the obvious. "Why haven't you said anything to me?"

"I don't know. You never ask for one" she sighed. "When I reflect on it, I think it hurts you too much to talk about it, but you don't want to admit, so you avoid it altogether. You... well you avoid discussing the past just as religiously as you adhere to Yoda's aphorisms. We talk about the future. We talk about what I might be, you might be. We don't talk about who we were three years ago."

_I hate talking about him too_.

Sure, he'd said that scant days ago, but he hadn't meant it the way she'd heard it. _I never will talk about him_. A dismal sense of failure tore through him. But she was right and wrong. He didn't try to bring it up, and no, it wasn't so much that it hurt.

When he thought about what his father had done to her the rage was too primal. He wanted to crawl back in time, to those moments on the Death Star when he supported his father's failing body. He wanted to return to those moments and carve through him piece by piece, smash his fists against the pale, scarred skin until it was nothing but a pulp of flesh and bone. Darkness, hate, the need for vengeance - all those could flow through him as evenly as the light to which he was dedicated. Vader was a sadistic machine, and if he let himself forget the _man _who'd died, he feared he'd crumble at the realization that the one good thing he'd ever thought he'd done was little more than a mirage erected to placate his own self worth.

"It makes me angry," he admitted, sensing immediately that the admission pleased her and wanting to rescind it.

"I'm angry too," she said softly. "Yet I feel as though I can't be angry around you without you looking at me like I'm about to turn into something evil. And I can't control it… I feel like I'm holding it in whenever I'm around you. It makes... it makes... it just makes everything that much more difficult."

Her anger was intense, palpable, her armor against her pain and the past. He'd felt it the other afternoon and been taken aback by its contagiousness.

And then," she added. "I keep waiting for him to find some way to hurt me, to take away everything I have again…"

"Leia he _can't_."

"I know that. I know I _should _know that. And I just wish someone would tell me everything is going to be all right, that it won't always hurt this much, even if they don't believe it. For the sake of saying it because for once I want to hear it. You used to do that."

_When I was naïve enough to think it meant something_, he thought sadly. He said it anyway, for the record.

She gave him the barest of smiles. "It doesn't count if I have to tell you."

He swallowed. "Leia, I never intended to make you feel like you can't talk to me. If I did somehow, I'm sorry."

"No. It's my fault too. You told me once I was the stronger of the two of us and I never…" She exhaled slowly again. "I never wanted to tell you how wrong you were about me."

"You are strong," he insisted.

The assurance mollified her for all of ten seconds. "I don't know anymore Luke." Her face fell again. "Han says I try too hard." She choked out a cynical half-laugh. "What does he know? He decided to run away."

Luke didn't know what Han's leaving was supposed to have accomplished. So he hadn't wanted her to go to Tyshapahl, she hadn't been able to take time away with him. To the best of his recollection either he or Han had been with her but for a few weeks here and there for the past five years and without them… Solo must have expected her to contact _him _if he left. Yet she hadn't, because she was too stubborn, too proud. "Maybe he didn't mean trying. Maybe he meant trying alone. Maybe he meant letting the people who care about you try to help too."

"Naturally," she murmured. "Where was he when I needed him? Where was he four months ago? I _did _need him. I _do_. How could he not know?"

There weren't any answers for that. Struggling to put confidence into his voice, he said, "Leia, I know he loves you. I know he loves you and he's not exactly predictable. He was coming back and you chose this mission. I'm sure otherwise you two would have…"

_Talked? Reconciled? Worked it out? She's pregnant with someone else's child_…

"You two have been through too much together for him to walk away now," he finished lamely.

"No," she said in a quivering voice that rang of self-fulfilling defeat and a broken heart. "I always knew that some day he would leave, Luke. I just didn't know when."

"You don't mean that." He hugged her as fiercely as he dared, pressed his face into her hair. "That's not true and we both know it. And look, I know it's not the same but I'll be here." She murmured what sounded like _okay _against his jacket, and he resolved that when they got out of this mess they were going to sit down and have a long, long talk.

As for Han…

His sister was not the first, nor would she be the last to fall into another's arms seeking consolation, a respite from loneliness, out of sheer desperation. He prayed this would be one of those occasions Han's egotistical pride and self professed, _I owe no one ideology _that had enabled him to almost walk away on Yavin IV wouldn't resurface in the worst way. This time, however, Luke suspected, as Leia believed, that it would.

"Not all is lost. I love her and it's the strangest feeling, like it comes from someplace so deep down inside of my heart and soul. I don't know. And it makes it okay… how it happened, that I don't know what's in store for me next… Even when everything I don't want to think about slams into me like a ton of bricks."

"Whatever you decide you it will be _your _decision," he promised. "I know you'll have a lot of decisions to make, and I'm not saying I won't have very strong opinions. She will need to be protected, especially if who we are gets out, but I know you." There was so much more he could have added, but he had months, so he simply said, "You'll do what needs to be done." With that last bit he sought to lighten the mood. "You know what?"

"What's that?"

"In a few months I'm going to be outnumbered two to one by the women in this family."

She made a vain effort to smile. "If any male I know deserves it, you do."

He drifted off sitting up, though he hadn't meant to, with her head cushioned by his leg and his hand on her forehead. He had two dreams in a row that were related - he knew they were related but he wasn't sure how - and completely different. In one, his sister lay unconscious while he frantically tried to get her to respond. In the second, she was scooping a tow-headed youngster into her arms and laughing. In the background of both a voice kept saying _tol'hi'denata _over and over. 

* * *

It was mid afternoon when they finally reached solid ground. Behind the cluster of sloe colored limbs was green, green, and green. Green as far as her eye could see. And green, at least on Baskarn, usually grew on solid ground, which meant walking, and the end of the noxious soupy realm which had been their prison for fifty hours.

Luke had told her yesterday that the swamps were similar to his Jedi Master's home in many ways except that each continent on Yoda's planet was covered in a never-ending expanse of swamp. In fact, he spent most of the morning comparing the two planets and pointing out fauna and creatures they had in common. She made a mental note to _never _visit the Jedi Master's home world, if and when her brother ever revealed its name to her. Whatever had attempted to make Artoo its lunch when his X-wing crashed no doubt had a doppelganger here.

Luke had also been telling her details of his grueling training, adding off hand that their trek couldn't even begin to compare. Each day he told her, he'd applied himself, focused, and succeeded at trials three days previous he'd believed beyond his capabilities. Yet his tiny master would only nod, and present him with a task he would fail, as though his penchant for overconfidence were a greater threat to him than Vader, or the Emperor. This Jedi Master, Leia mused, should really have been around in Luke's early years with the Alliance, when he was ready to hop into his X-wing and take on half the Imperial Navy at a moment's notice. Luke's reality checks usually came from herself, Han, or Wedge, his youthful exuberance and determination reluctant to hear the voice of reason.

Little if any exuberance remained when they touched land. After nearly two days of being buoyed by water, emerging from it was like readjusting to gravity after being stuck in hyperspace for days on end with broken stabilizers. Every muscle in her body felt like it had been turned to liquid fire, and her head pounded as though a bantha had stepped on it. They'd been sprawled on the ground resting for almost an hour.

Luke wasn't moving much. Beneath the soft brown stubble that covered the old Wampa scars running along his left cheek his face was flushed and pinched taut with exhaustion. She didn't know how many hours Luke had gone without sleep at this point, how many hours of sleep she'd managed. On top of that, one of the reptiles with the long tails had gone for his pack and won, gouging his shoulder in the process. His pack had been the one with the medkit, the shelter, and the hydro-extractor.

Each time she tried to rouse him he pushed her away and insisted _help _was on its way.

_What help_, she wondered, but he was adamant, so she rested too.

His wheezing intensified. "Hey! There they are."

There was grunting nearby. She pushed back onto her knees, raised a hand to her face, feeling sticky blood on her forehead, cheek and neck from the knife vines dangling in the swamp. She spat out the stale taste of swamp residue again and looked up. Two Yrashu, the _same _two Yrashu who'd visited their camp, were gesticulating wildly and motioning for them to follow.

"They've been tailing us for days," Luke wheezed.

She frowned. _For days_?

"I didn't know why," he stressed. "Just that they were."

The largest one immediately came over and grunted more forcefully, then picked up her pack, while the female continued encouraging them to follow.

"We must look universally desperate and pathetic," he moaned. "To all species…"

"Can you make it?" she asked, moving to help him up.

He struggled to stand, and she sucked in her breath at the sight of blood soaking through both sides of his jacket. She looped an arm around his back for support.

They followed for almost an hour with the odd sight of a primitive creature wearing a survival pack their beacon. When they eventually arrived at a small encampment, Leia was amazed to see a cabin surrounded by carefully tended gardens, flowering plants. Strung taut from a loom set up between two beveled posts was a partially completed shirt. Snares, clay urns, benches were outside the domicile. It was almost gentrified. Several clay urns were positioned on either side of the doorway that was sealed with a crude form of netting. It was far too advanced to be Yrashu. Anxious, she patted the pocket of her coveralls to make sure her holdout blaster was ready.

At that moment, a man emerged from the main cabin, murmured something softly to the two Yrashu. They set the gear down and continued on.

Luke waved his hand. "Hello."

The stranger was maybe half a head taller than her brother was but less muscular and wirier. He wore a loose fallow tunic, reaching to his knees and belted loosely at the waist. The outfit was completed by a threadbare and worn cloak, a mixture of grey halftones and silver, which was, along with an amber amulet, the only item he wore that didn't look pitifully homemade. Braided plant fibers tied back raven hair that was nearly as long as her own, but his beard was grey enough for her to guess he was long past his youth. "Welcome," the man said. "I see my friends led you in the right direction."

"Yes, yes, they did. You could say…" He turned to her and shrugged. "We're in need of some assistance."

_Friends_, Leia thought, hoping that was a good sign although she wasn't about to risk anything based on their character assessment. She couldn't place the light accent either. And his eyes… His eyes were brilliant gold. She had never met a human with eyes that color, and was so captivated by them she barely noticed the cylindrical item clipped to his waist.

The two men stared long and hard at each other, and it was then that Leia became aware of the unspoken dialogue, the undercurrent of the meeting, the unfamiliar touch of a foreign mind, not Luke's, against her own. The tingle of power around her was profound and overwhelming.

_A Jedi_, she thought. _A living, breathing Jedi_…

The man's eyes flicked up and down over them, absorbing their bedraggled appearances, Luke's shoulder. "Dry clothes, food, shelter, medical attention?"

Luke appeared to be at a complete loss for words. "Uh… In that order even."

"Well then," the man said, gesturing to his cabin. "I've been expecting you. Please, come inside."

The dwelling was well built, obviously by a person of some craftsmanship; smooth heartwood planks had been used, extending to the ceiling, made watertight with the addition of heavy thatching. There was a cooking area in one corner, across from which was a stack of crates stamped with the Kuat shipyards logo, some of which had been broken apart and turned into shelves for what looked like stacks and stacks of junk, bowls, datapads, jars filled with gods knew what. The only bed in the room was across from the cooking area, padded with some sort of floccose fiber.

The man retrieved a tunic and blanket. "Whatever I have that you can use… I don't have much but I suggest you warm up first. You must be Luke?"

Leia froze but her brother maintained his composure implacably, stripping off his clothes with a habitual lack of modesty. She made of point of focusing her attentions elsewhere.

"I am," he said, as though it was perfectly natural for this man to greet him by name. "You seem to have me at a disadvantage. I don't know who you are."

The man's brow raised in amusement. "No you wouldn't. You wouldn't have even been born when I arrived here. I'm Sarin." The brow wandered higher. "I always pictured you as being older though… I've heard so much about you over the years."

"Here? How?"

"Your base is only a day from here by speeder. I receive wayward visitors from time to time." Turning sideways, he addressed her. "And you my dear would be?"

"Leia," she replied, sighing inwardly with relief; then they weren't that far at all, though… _what _was he still doing out here? Luke was known to be the last of the Jedi, so upon meeting him, it wouldn't be hard to figure out.

"You're from Tatooine?" Sarin asked.

Luke slipped the calve-length tunic, nearly identical to their host's, over his head, carefully leaving his one arm free and exposing the nasty mass of bleeding puncture wounds on either side of his shoulder. "I grew up there."

"Oddly..." The elder man reflected, confused. "I've heard you were strong in the Force, but never that you had a sister who was too. Leia is it? Not _Princess _Leia Organa of Alderaan"

Icy shivers ran up and down her spine and mistrust tightened her stomach. For a man who lived in the middle of nowhere, he was very well informed and she didn't like it. She slipped her hand into her pocket. Sure, their names might have come up in casual conversation, but not their relationship to one another. "No one from the base would have told you that," she said.

Sarin headed for his kitchen, selected a bowl and dipped it into the earthenware pot resting on his stove. "The extent of a Jedi's perception is as varied as any inherited skills, natural tendencies," he called over his shoulder. "Mine are more unique." He returned and handed the bowl to Luke. "Drink this. It may not taste very good but it's quite effective against anything you may have picked up in those swamps."

Luke took a sip and grimaced. "You're not exaggerating."

"Now let's have a look at that bite," Sarin suggested. "Take a seat on the floor."

Neither seemed to notice her standing there, still soaked and miserable, wondering where she could go change that wasn't inside or out in the rain, but in the next breath all concerns were forgotten.

Her brother sat obediently while Sarin knelt beside him and probed the ragged wounds. The elder Jedi clenched his hands into fists and closed his eyes. When he opened them again they glowed red as though lit up from within. She could see the bones through his fingers, his veins and tendons. It was almost as though his hands had a luma pressed tight beneath them while she gazed upon them from above. Then he cupped both hands over the wounds.

"What are you-" Luke closed his eyes and groaned. In pain at first from the contact, but the rigidity of his jaw eased up within seconds. His next groan was one of relief. When Sarin removed his hands a few seconds later, his shoulder was smooth and only faintly scarred. With a shrug, the Jedi grabbed a torn piece of cloth and wiped away the blood from his hands and Luke's shoulder.

Leia was incredulous. Her brother was capable of advancing his recovery for most injuries but not that instantaneously.

"Holy…" Luke began, touching his shoulder in fascination. "How did you…How…" He looked up in astonishment. "Why you were a healer, weren't you?"

"Well I still am," Sarin chuckled, getting up to rinse the blood from his hands. "Though I've rarely had human patients over the last twenty five years… But for the few from your base who had an unfortunate encounter with the Hrosma tigers a short distance away from here."

_Tigers_, Leia thought, feeling chilled again. She hadn't read _that _in the files.

"I've never seen anything like it," Luke murmured, touching his shoulder, rejoined flesh. "Not even my Master or the other Jedi I trained with…"

"There weren't many of us," Sarin told us. "I was descended from a long line of healers, of Jedi who dedicated themselves to nothing else."

"_Really_," Luke breathed.

"Where do I even begin? Imagine if you will, all of your training narrowed towards one goal, one specialty, and imagine then how proficient your capabilities in that area would be."

"I suppose," Luke reasoned rapidly.

"Ah but of course," Sarin amended, "the healers of Yashuvhu were already born with the gift, the ability to see auras, read a person's physical history by sight alone. We had the advantage."

The recognition shot through her like a bolt of lightening, and her next movement was to draw her holdout blaster and aim the barrel at his chest.

Luke vaulted forward and settled his hand over the nozzle. "He's not going to harm us."

She jerked the carbine free of his palm. "Ask him to explain then!"

"Explain what?" Sarin asked.

"Leia," Luke sighed. "The blaster isn't going to do you much good…"

She held her line of fire.

"Okay… My apologies but she was attacked by something, by someone who sounded like you and spoke Yashuvhi. Four days ago..." He took a deep breath. "We haven't been sure what happened. It wasn't something I could sense… Or feel…"

A shadow passed across Sarin's features. "She was?"

"Yes she was."

"Unexpected," Sarin murmured. "I am not the only native of Yashuvhi who was held at the Korriban station, which…" He leveled his gaze. "I gather you found as you have yet to ask me how I came to be here."

"Yes," Luke told him.

"As far as I know I am the only survivor."

"As far as you know," Luke furthered, saying more slowly, "If you say _unexpected_ then it would indicate that you have some idea of what we're talking about."

"Rest assured it was not I." The reply was understated, an acknowledgement, but not an invitation to ask more.

Luke nodded. "I believe you."

"Then he's using some sort of mind trick on you," she put in. "I could hear him, feel him. This is too much of a coincidence!"

"You _don't _believe him?" Luke asked.

"No." Her instincts clawed at her and forced her fingers to tighten their grip. Luke's reassurances found their way into her jumbled thoughts, coaxing her to _please _remember she was a guest here. Logically, it didn't make sense for him to have led them here when they needed help if he intended to harm them. Logically… Luke might rely on the Force but she would have been dead years ago if she trusted so easily. "No!"

Her brother countered. "And why would anyone bother to use mind tricks on me and not you? Why would he have healed me, helped us?"

She mulled that over for a second. He did have a point, or rather two good points. "He still knows _who _or _what _it was. He's not saying."

Luke studied Sarin. "You _do _know something. I can sense that."

"You are in no danger here," Sarin replied, rising to his feet and going to fetch another bowl. The weapon turned on him may have well been a spoon or a feather. "That's what's most important."

"But how…" A new current of surprise seemed to run through Luke, from the hair on the tip of his head to his extremely wrinkled toes. "The Yrashu! _You _sent them to us?"

"That I did. Though I would not have advised the route you chose. The swamps are too dangerous, even for the Yrashu, as you discovered the hard way." He came to extend his peace offering. "Perhaps your hands will be better occupied with this," he suggested to her. "And perhaps you'd like to get out of your wet clothes."

With a sigh of exasperation she slipped the weapon back in her pocket.

"Is it some sort of mental link, or bond?" Luke was asking. "I thought I felt…" He shook his head.

"That the Yrashu are Force sensitive?" Sarin finished. "Yes, they are, though they lack what we would consider sophisticated control. However they are able enough to serve as my eyes and ears. Over long distances the impressions are incoherent. I merely instructed them to escort you."

"Like a reconnaissance droid," Leia murmured, clear-sightedness finally replacing the anxious rush of adrenaline. She supposed his concern for their well being should have completely smoothed the vague uneasiness she felt, but there were simply too many questions. From what Luke had told her and what she knew of Palpatine, her father even, use of the Dark side was utterly antithetical to healing. It drained the life from its users and did not replenish it as the light side did. Sarin had sent the Yrashu ahead because he was worried; she could assume that much, though what worried him was unclear. And if the base was so nearby…

Her twin asked it before she could. "Though you claim to have made contact with members of our base they've never reported a lone Jedi living here."

"They may have reported me," Sarin winked, "If they remembered meeting me."

Her muscles tightened with apprehension again. "_Brainwashing_!"

"Oh? And am I the only Jedi who chose to remain anonymous rather than face certain death," their host demanded, resting his strange eyes on her once more.

"No," Luke said. "You're not."

"The Alliance needed _help_," she said shortly, anger firing her temper. If what he was saying was true…They'd been so desperate five years ago. At least Ben Kenobi had emerged from hiding to teach Luke, as had Master Yoda. "You had to have known that yet you chose to do nothing. Whose side were you on?"

"Who am I helping now?" Sarin replied evenly. "It was never meant to be me. My training was not that of a warrior, and my lightsaber was little more than a symbol of the order I loosely belonged to. And," he pointed to Luke, "if my memory serves me, you _did _receive help and he's standing next to me."

Luke's mouth twitched. "I was one of thousands, not an army of one. I'll do my best to dispel the myths when we arrive at the base."

"And now that we've found you," she cut in. "Are you going to erase our memories too?"

"_Leia_," Luke whispered harshly.

She shook his thoughts off.

Sarin set the unaccepted bowl on the floor by her feet. "Nothing of the sort. Now I suggest you take what I have offered you before you catch a death of a cold. In your condition, it's probably not a wise gamble." And with that he headed for the doorway and swept the netting aside.

"That was _smooth_," Luke breathed after he had gone.

"This doesn't make any sense," she insisted. "It doesn't! Something's going on here!"

"You'd prefer to refuse his aid because you think his being here doesn't make sense? Does _that _make sense?"

"No," she whispered meekly. But if Sarin was from Yashuvhu it meant what had happened to her was real. The hatred she had felt directed toward her was real. Furthermore he knew what it was or was connected to it. Yet... he was helping them? She began to feel ashamed, even appalled at her behavior. "Are you sure we can trust him?"

"Yes." Luke picked up one of the blankets and opened it wide for her. "Now take his advice before he gets back and get changed."

"Fine," she sighed. Donning a strange man's bedclothes was disconcerting, but was better than being wet. It took a few minutes to work her way out of her boots and soggy coveralls, the fatigues and tunic she wore beneath them. When she was done she took the blanket from Luke, which upon closer inspection appeared to be made of plant fibers, treated until they were supple and pliable enough to be woven into a sturdy cloth. She wrapped it tightly around herself, scooped up the dreadful smelling concoction and went to sit on the edge of his bed. There wasn't a chance she was going to be able to make herself drink it, even if it was medicinal.

"You know what I think?" Luke said, collecting the wet items and hanging them from pegs beside the doorway. "I think you're so exhausted you can't see straight or make heads or tails of anything."

"Thanks," she grumbled. "And you're in peak form right now."

"Well why don't you lay down and get some sleep."

She pushed the heel of her palm down against the bedding. Her vision was starting to blur from fatigue and her head ached. Overall she felt ill. To lie down for a little while would feel so good. "This is his bed. That's not very polite."

"He won't mind," Luke assured her.

_In your condition_, he had said. He _knew_. "What about you?"

"I'm going to go talk to him, _thank _him, and do the same on the floor."


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

"We use it when needed, do not abuse it when it is not. Just as we would not use the Force to fetch a drink when we have two legs and can walk, we would not forget that marbuk root is just as effective for a cold. If we did everything sitting down, we would soon be physically useless, deteriorate from inactivity, and as such, we should not forget the gifts found naturally that the Force provides us with because it is faster our way. The body is a living organism, which possesses its own memory, its own capacity for healing. We do not do what it can on its own, only what it cannot. The Force is not just a part of our existence; it is our existence, present in every molecule of our bodies, no matter how minute it might seem. Respect is shown by using what nature provides us with _first_. As fighting is a last resort, so is using our powers when there are other means available."

And Sarin stressed, "Just as Jedi are taught that we cannot allow evil to take place by failing to act, the Jedi healer cannot allow pain and suffering, death to occur by refusing to assist. Even if it means aiding those we consider our enemy."

Luke flicked a guilty gaze his sister's way. There had been no shortage of conversation that evening although being subjected to non-stop Force related discussions all night was likely wearing on her. He hoped she wasn't wondering again whom Sarin meant by _enemy_. Since they'd awoken, she'd appeared to have relaxed, or at least set aside her suspicions. At any rate, the weather beaten Jedi had been rather amused by her antics, patting her shoulder when she awoke and saying it had been the most excitement he'd had here in decades. Leia had been dutifully apologetic.

Sarin, as it turned out, had been raised from boyhood to be a healer. He was as skilled with medicinal treatments as he was with the Force, but his strengths within the Force all revolved around healing. It was a beautiful compliment to an existing art form, the perfect combination of two types of natural energy, which together, provided a wealth of both exhaustible and inexhaustible resources. The apothecarial achievements of many ancient cultures had progressed to the point that they were as essential to their people as modern medicine and technology. Like the revered Uukaablians, the Yashuvhu had dedicated centuries of study to medicine, had progressed so far that their achievements nearly equaled those of galactic modern medicine and technology.

The Jedi healers of Yashuvhu knew how to cleanse the blood of infections and toxins, fuse bones without laying a finger on the broken limb, stop internal bleeding, help skin regenerate over burns without scarring, heal the lungs of methane breathers ravaged by oxygen, even heal the lungs of oxygen breathers exposed to any of the thousands of chemicals that salted so many atmospheres. Even the New Republic, who by far had the most advanced medical technology in the galaxy, couldn't do many of the things he claimed he could, and while Luke had heard tales of Jedi healers, their abilities had rarely surpassed modern medicine.

When Luke was injured, he _drew _on the Force to replenish his body's regenerative powers, accelerated them. His body already knew what to do. It wasn't as simple when treating another person. Though he could suppress another's sense of pain, increase their strength, stop blood flow, it wasn't healing as Sarin practiced it. The Force's relation to his physical self was a part of his everyday life, perhaps even a subconscious symmetry. In another, it had to be guided and told where to go. Focusing on the individual self was entirely different than channeling, externalizing the Force and commanding it to heal another.

Even with all that he had learned, he could never have healed another as had been done to him that afternoon.

Luke was infatuated, engrossed and asking rapid-fire questions throughout the meal. He barely tasted anything (though it was _real _meat, a much needed addition to their diet of late), doing his best to curb his excitement. He had given up hope of finding anyone alive on Baskarn, been distracted by the recent events, and here he was, discovering a philosophy reminiscent of Yoda's teachings. It had never occurred to him that the teachings were flexible, adaptable, that separate standards had existed to allow some Jedi to serve a different calling. The awakening made him feel as though he'd been viewing his future dream of a praxeum through one narrow perspective, black and white, seeing the grains of sand rather than the dunes themselves.

Leia, who'd looked to be a thousand light years away, fixated her attention on Sarin's last remark, suddenly on edge again. "What of the station?" she asked bluntly.

"I was there. I let them die, against all I was taught, yes," Sarin nodded. "I was forced to choose between the moment and the future." He paused. "It's ironic really. When I first left Yashuvhu, I visited the Council. I knew the peril the Jedi were facing; I'd heard stories. But I was young and optimistic, filled with dreams of the galaxy beyond the Outer Rim, craving adventure and the exotic. I thought, given the turmoil of the Republic, if I stayed far enough away from Coruscant I would attract no attention. Me, a Jedi who'd had no formal training beyond that of a healer."

"But you did," Leia said quietly.

"We _all _did, last I heard."

The solemn affirmation crushed the spirit of the conversation. "There were a few exceptions," Luke murmured on behalf of Ben and Yoda. "But they're gone now." One glaring oversight returned. "We found a cave nearer to the station, a lightsaber… There were others who escaped with you, weren't there?"

"Yes. He was an old man – a Jedi Master from Chandrila who thought that if he called out long enough that one of the others would hear him and find him. Delusional at times. He refused to go further, wisely. His health was too feeble to have made the journey this far. I did try to convince him but to no avail."

_Mon Mothma_'_s homeworld_. An old man who stayed close enough to one of the few places a rescue shuttle might have landed. There had been no one left to hear him, no one to come. By Luke's calculations, Sarin had been in hiding here since the end of the Clone Wars. He reflected on that bitterly for a moment. It was almost worse in a way, to have hoped so hard that he was willing to wait, only to end up dying alone.

"Hope is the last emotion we cling to."

Luke started and looked back up.

"Isolation breeds hypersensitivity in the strangest ways," Sarin explained.

He tried to shake off his discomfiture at being listened in on. He was used to being the one who overheard, not the other way around. It didn't sit well with him. "Were there others?" He looked up at Sarin hopefully. "I've been searching for artifacts, for anything to do with the Jedi over the past two years."

"Have you had much success?"

"Coruscant has a great deal of material - a museum and repository even - buried away beneath the Emperor's palace, but it's…" He faltered, dry mouthed. How did one describe a trophy showcase dedicated to Palpatine's victims? "It's very… _dark _there, tainted," he finished.

"I expect it would be." Sarin shook his head. "Everything the Emperor touched bears his mark."

Once there had been a Master for every Apprentice or Padawan, records, holograms, libraries, Jedi who possessed boundless knowledge. Yoda had been near nine hundred years old – he'd known so much, but Luke could fill only one day of meditations with all that he'd learned. Everything else was lost. "There's no history," Luke went on. "Nothing to tell me how the Jedi lived or taught. You're the first one I've found since I began my search."

Sarin stroked his graying brow thoughtfully. "Hmm." Then he turned his attention to Leia. "Your aura is rather extraordinary, my dear."

"My what?" Leia readjusted her blanket self-consciously.

The Yashuvhi native held a few fingers several inches from her shoulder. "It radiates off of you, much more powerfully than even ours..."

_As her child grows so must the Force around her_.

"Because of her daughter," Luke murmured.

"Yes. Those of us who are Force sensitive are surrounded by the blue energy that comprises the Force, though most Jedi believed it was not a visible entity."

Leia was holding up her arm, searching for the mystical field Sarin was describing. "I can't see it. Is this how you knew Luke and I are brother and sister?"

"Twins even, I might add."

"Twins?" Luke repeated.

"It's quite simple. Auras are distinctive, like a palm print, or your genetic makeup. Yours are nearly identical. The phenomenon of twins was not uncommon on Yashuvhu; I've seen this before. You were conceived together. Your first sense of touch would have been of each other, your heartbeats would have been the first sound. You shared blood, oxygen. Some say twins even possess their own way of communicating without speech in uteri."

The romanticized description rendered him speechless. No, he'd never thought of it _that _way.

Leia laughed, good-naturedly. "I can't believe you tell all that from reading energy around us."

"Many don't. Even foreign Jedi, in my limited experience, underestimated how much could be revealed." Swift as a stinging asp his fingers locked about Luke's wrist, digging deep into the point at which his hand ceased to be _his_, the point at which his father's blade had taken it. "Here. The outline of your right hand blazes crimson until here. It tells me that it was lost in a violent manner."

Luke suppressed a shiver. "Did all the healers of Yashuvhu have this ability?"

Sarin shook his head sagely. "There were few my equal. I imagine I am the last."

_The last_, Luke thought abjectly. "You said you were not the only Yashuvhi who was held at the station? What was it? We thought it was some sort of research facility."

"And tell me," Sarin asked, grim disgust pinching the corner of his mouth, "What did you feel when you walked through those halls, saw the cells, the laboratories."

The memory of the ancient anguish, the pit of evil he had encountered in the cellblock evoked more visceral horror, deep in his gut. "Its purpose was… _terrible_."

"And now tell me," he said, in a deeper tone, addressing Leia specifically. "If the _Death Star_ had gone on to destroy ten more worlds, a hundred more worlds, and ultimately it came into your possession, would you destroy it or send on to your best technicians, scientists for study."

The hypothetical question was so cold, so chilling, Luke's skin puckered anew. Leia's derision was palpable. Her chest caught mid-breath, and then continued; the pulse along the side of her neck jumped so forcefully that he could see its rapid motion. "Destroy it," she breathed. "Destroy it so no one could ever duplicate it, recreate it."

"Then you will understand why I cannot answer your questions, why even the New Republic must never learn of what was here." Sarin turned to Luke again. "You seek to recreate a new order, yet all you have discovered here are the keys to the destruction of the old. If the Empire were to learn of this place, and I imagine Palpatine did all he could to erase it, along with abandoning his own staff, you will drive a stake through the heart of all you hope to accomplish in its infancy. Baskarn is a graveyard for the last of the Jedi, nothing more. We are not gods who have the right to fashion the universe to suit us. It isn't the will of the Force, nor is it the will of nature. If you abuse either, they return the favor in kind. Palpatine chose to manipulate both, and suffered the fate he deserved. In whatever realm his blackened soul is trapped, he surely is watching his Empire crumble to pieces." He grimaced. "It's almost poetic, depending on your point of view."

"_Watching_," Luke repeated. "No. He's dead. I saw him die. I was there."

"You saw his physical body die," Sarin said, touching his fingers to his forehead, tapping. "But not what was in here, not the intangible consciousness that made _him _Palpatine, makes _you _Luke, _her _Leia. The Force cannot be reduced to matter, nor can the spirit."

Twenty-four years of accumulated weariness descended upon him like blasted ferracrete. The concept of facing the Emperor again – _ever _- made marooning himself on Baskarn not without its appeal. _"Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter_," Yoda had lectured. However Luke had equivocated _luminous _with _light _and _good_, not with darkness and hatred, never conceding for a heartbeat that _both _were part of the Force, that both could go on…

"Therein lies the answer to what you encountered out there," Sarin added.

Which, until now, their host had been reluctant to explain. Luke might have used the term haunted but haunted seemed to limiting a description. It was more than that. Haunted and alive. "Can _you _sense it?"

"Yes."

"Why can't I?"

"It didn't choose to make itself known to you," Sarin replied, giving him yet again one of those cryptic answers that begged another question in return.

The steely resolve in his eyes warned him not to press. This was weird, Luke decided. Weirder, because Leia _had _sensed it that night. It had reached out to her, tried to harm her.

Leia stood up and made a stiff circle around them. "I don't want to sense it again," she murmured. "I don't know why you would want to." Then she ducked beneath the netting draped across the doorway.

Sarin watched her go, humming softly under his breath. "She's part of the Provisional Council, is she not?"

"Their number one diplomat."

"Bail Organa would have demanded no less of his daughter, I imagine."

"Bail Organa? You knew him?"

"I knew of him. He was quite a power to be reckoned with in the Galactic political scene, very outspoken for his time."

"So is she." He envisioned the many events he attended with her, most of which he'd spent fumbling through mental lists of alien etiquette – was a handshake this culture's invitation to a fight to the death, or a bow? If the protocol droid offered ambiguous translations, how did you smooth over the potential misunderstanding? Leia breezed through all of them with a grace and dignity that dumbfounded him.

"She's gone up against more heads of state in her lifetime than I can remember and won; she can spin any debate around so fast I have no idea how I end up agreeing with her half the time. I've watched aliens and humans alike start off as adversaries and end up eating out her hand. I don't know how she does it. I guess… She listens to them intently, starts off by trying to see things from their side and then mid-way through she'll offer her thoughts – they're never opinions, just a thought she has – but enough to make them pause. The next thing you know the official will be addressing his group saying, "Well, I think we should proceed in this manner," which is more often than not exactly what she'd hoped for. It's incredible." Luke felt his face warm, finishing softly. "And I wouldn't be here if it weren't for her."

"And vice-versa?" Sarin asked. "I do recall hearing about the now legendary rescue that occurred a few years ago."

"Well that too," Luke agreed. He perused the inside the cabin carefully, seeking evidence of modern technology. Sarin must have taken the crates from the station, but other than that, nothing in his dwelling looked like a communications device. "Your guests must talk nonstop. Are you sure you don't have a Holonet viewer stashed around here?"

Sarin chuckled. "I must admit to asking about you. I heard about the Emperor's apprentice, Darth Vader, and later that you battled him as a novice and survived. _That _caught my attention."

"Bespin," Luke nodded, holding out his prosthetic limb. "That's where I lost my hand." He skirted a glance at the doorway. He didn't really want Leia to wander back into a discussion about Vader, particularly after the other night.

Either Sarin sensed this or he too had no wish to discuss the dark lord. Instead he tipped his head in the direction of the doorway. "She carries the first of the new Jedi. You will train her and her children? She's not trained as of yet?"

"I hope to," he said quietly. "In the future."

Luke skirted another glance at the doorway. He should be happy, right? Leia had all but agreed that she would train with him the other night but… "I don't know," he admitted. "It's…just that…." What exactly? Had his purview taken an abrupt shift two days ago? _No, I haven't changed my mind. _But still… to her it was a _duty _and after everything she'd told him, doubts were worming their way through his mind. What was he supposed to do if she _wasn't _ready? What if her not being ready put her child's life at stake? What sort of precedent was he setting for the future?

"I detect a note of reluctant indecisiveness," Sarin commented. "Myself, I've always found that our emotions are complicated. They tend to cloud our ability to make decisions. All the while, lingering just beyond our meditations is the knowledge that if we don't, they will be made for us. Isn't it always that way?"

"Yes."

"They also say, on the other hand, that if the path is uncertain we must stop until we recover our bearings, that's it foolish to continue in the wrong direction."

Luke wasn't so sure he liked the healer's ability to get inside his head, resolving that if his next words were, '_patience and waiting_,' he might have a day long session working on his mental defenses as soon as they made it to the base. This was extremely unnerving.

Sarin sipped from his mug. "I do not envy the road you have set out for yourself, but sometimes, even I find the platitudes we adhere to merely aren't as reassuring as they were meant to be. They make our troubles that much more complicated."

Luke smiled inwardly, relieved. Master Yoda and Ben would never have been so honest. _Ben is gone. Yoda is gone. I finally have a chance to learn_. "What will you do now?"

"What will I do?"

"When we leave? You could come with us? If you like we could find you safe transport back to Yashuvhu."

"Hmm."

"It wouldn't be a problem at all. I can arrange it for you."

With what sounded to be exaggerated consideration, he murmured, "_hmm_," again.

Luke sighed. He'd expected Sarin to exhibit more emotion. Of course, Master Yoda and Ben had also lived alone. Maybe he was underestimating the allure of solitude, for though the man radiated an air of peacefulness, there was an excursary feel to it, as though he had accepted his exile with gratitude, even welcomed it. But he thought, reassuringly, that he now knew where he would be. 

* * *

The morning seemed never-ending.

Leia sat outside Sarin's cabin, leaning against his doorframe, for hours. Her coveralls had dried overnight and she had shed the blanket. She sat with her arms drawn inside, trying not to itch the nafen bites on her calves and neck. It wasn't working particularly well. When she stopped scratching, they only itched a thousand times more terribly. It was enough to make her say 'to hell with it, ' and rip her legs to shreds.

With a frustrated groan she withdrew her arms and resumed untangling the section of her hair she'd been working on. If she kept her hands busy long enough she would forget about the bites.

Sarin had told them last night that the Yrashu had sent him images of several scout teams headed in this direction. If she'd known the comlink frequencies used at the base, she would have scaled the highest point near her and called for a pick-up. But _that _wouldn't work. It would have taken Artoo or any computer system nearly two days of running random numbers to crack the codes. It was a fact the New Republic guarded against by frequent changes.

Luke wasn't ready to leave. She'd fallen asleep after dinner listening to the two men speak in hushed voices about healing techniques. And more quietly later on, Luke's efforts to persuade Sarin to come return to the base with them. Then today, he had said, _I thought we could stay for the morning. And really, what are a few hours. The scout team will call for transport and we_'_ll save ourselves the trouble of hiking_. Translation: Luke hadn't convinced him yet and wanted more time. Both men had disappeared after breakfast, and she'd been keeping an impatient vigil since then.

Knowing the scout team was on their way had reopened the concerns she had not had the mental energy to dwell on for days now. They must have found the _Razion_'_s Edge_, realized they weren't on it, and found their escape pod. A full investigation would probably be underway. Depending on how you looked at it, that was good or bad news. Finding out who was responsible was urgent; the New Republic was hanging onto Coruscant by a ragged thread. Mistrust and grumblings that the government was on the verge of losing its slim margin of control over the Empire couldn't withstand the shadow cast by treason from within their own. On top of that, Luke's friend who'd sliced into the medical files and found the connection between Vader and Anakin Skywalker may have been forced to release the information, precluding their plan to announce it beforehand.

_Damage control_, she thought. _Months of damage control and then I have to leave to sort out my own life_.

She smoothed her hands across her face, trying to ease away what Han affectionately called her 'worry mode' expression.

_Sweetheart, just relax_. Han said it so often she heard it in her head now, as though he were with her.

_Sweetheart, it_'_ll be all right_...

"But it's not," she said aloud to herself, wondering again if _he _was with one of the rescue teams. The temptation to ask Luke if he could sense him was worse than the bites begging to be scratched, but there hadn't been time for her and Luke to speak in private, not for more than a few minutes since they'd arrived at Sarin's.

If he _was _with the team, she didn't know what she was going to do when she saw him. Fall on her knees and beg him to stay? Tell him she loved him? Tell him to go?

Deep down, she'd always known how difficult it would be for him to change, knew that men who led solitary lives, moved constantly from one place to another, found it impossibly hard to settle down. She had no idea if he _could _change, if he truly had changed, save that for five years, he'd been in one place - near her. But it wasn't like him to speak in terms of permanence, of creating bonds that would forge their tumultuous relationship into a union more substantial. In the innermost recesses of her heart she'd always feared that one day his restlessness and wanderlust would lead him away from her. Fearing that, as all creatures prone to self-preservation, like all who have lost more than they can bear in their life time, she could need him, but she couldn't rely on him, couldn't allow herself to become too dependant. She wasn't the type to be overly dependent on anybody.

It wasn't enough when it should have been enough and she didn't know how to explain it. It might have been more her than him. She'd thought that sometimes, in those first weeks after he had gone.

The heavy fog was lifting, smoky wisps interspersing with the cool air, letting patches of sunlight filter down. She tipped her face back, let her skin drink it in, parched after days of rain and fog. It lifted her spirits. Letting the steady hum of her own senses soothe her, she reflected on Sarin's fearsome imprecations.

_If the Death Star had gone on to destroy ten more worlds, a hundred more worlds_…

She closed her eyes and pictured the two adjoining fountains on her father's estate, miniatures of the killik castle architecture on the plains – one of her father's favorite places, and the D'ian Orchids that grew in his garden. She pictured the T'ill, the arallutes, the flame lilies that were resplendent in spring when their silver and crimson blossom appeared afire. From behind the gardens she'd been able to see the grass field that Alderaan was so famous for, merging with the horizon in every direction, yielding to the soft breezes with rustles of pleasure, ocean upon ocean of grass and flowers. She could picture this without the piercing ache in her heart, _places_, not the faces of her loved ones, of everyone she'd ever known.

_No, once was more than enough…_

The New Republic must never learn of what was here…

Sarin's amiable nature and generosity had robbed her of her suspicions yet still she shivered in the oppressive humidity. Whatever Palpatine had been doing here, she was no longer sure she wanted to know, and whatever it had been, Sarin was not going to tell them.

_The New Republic must never learn of what was here_…

What was now a familiar growling and grunting broke her train of thought.

A very young Yrashu entered Sarin's encampment carrying a sealed basket. The creature made a beeline to where she was sitting, set his basket down and joined her. Just as the female had the other day, it picked up her hands and inhaled, touched her hair and face, softly _urring _at her.

"And who might you be?" she asked. Unlike the first encounter, she wasn't worried that it would harm her, decided to give in to her curiosity too, reaching out to touch the long green hairs. Its fur was surprisingly silky, thick - the type of pelt galactic hunters would love for their collections, that poachers would sell for a steep price on the black market. That the Yrashu were intelligent, peaceful, and gentle, would be of no consequence to them. Leia vowed to herself that if the Elrood Sector were ever freed from Imperial control she would make sure that Baskarn was kept well protected from colonization and exploitation. There were a number of environmental statutes that could be used to designate the primates as a protected species.

The Yrashu continued his rapid guttural grunts and began making hand gestures in what appeared to be an elaborate form of sign language, his long leathery fingers graceful as a bird's wings. Each time she tried to duplicate his gestures he grabbed her hands and guided them, then emitted several low rolling growls she suspected were laughter. He was still laughing when Sarin appeared.

"I see you've met the resident trickster."

"Trickster," she repeated, eyeing him. He was parodying Chewbacca's inane habit of staring straight above his head and pretending he'd had nothing to do with why Han's beverage had magically evaporated when he went to find a hydrospanner. Maybe hanging around a Wookiee all these years had made her more perceptive than she'd thought.

"Let's see…" He signed to him several times, listened to Trickster grumble back. The exchange was nothing short of impressive, and she studied the healer's body language, watched how he mimicked the Yrashu's pose, wondered how long it had taken him to learn. Apparently, the man's talents were not restricted to healing; it would have taken most exobiologists decades to memorize and pattern the slight nuances and inflections of such a primitive species' speech, and even then they would have relied on sophisticated auditory diagnostic computers to assist them. Sarin caught her watching him and smiled warmly. "I'm asking him what he was teaching you to say," he translated.

"This?" she asked, trying to remember the sequence of gestures. They both burst out laughing at her. Sarin, with a rumbling chuckle, Trickster with deep throated rolling _oor, oors_.

"You'll be pleased to learn you've identified him as the _mightiest _of his tribe, which he may be in another twenty years or so when he reaches adulthood, but he is far from it now."

"They have a sense of humor," she murmured.

"And a great sense of love and compassion, respect for all life," he added. He signaled again, and Trickster disappeared into the jungles without so much as a goodbye. "He was in the area and wanted to see the others who he'd heard were staying with me." He pointed to the Yrashu's offering. "On the pretense of bringing a gift."

"Did you live with them?" she asked. "You seem to understand them well."

"For a few years I did. However they have no concept of personal space, find the idea of a creature wanting to be _alone _antithetic to their social structure and I…" He hugged his head in his hands. "They drove me absolutely mad. The youngest ones ate everything I gathered, even medicines, broke everything I'd retrieved from the station… one even tried to pluck out my eye because he liked the color."

That made her laugh. "They don't discipline their offspring very well I take it."

"No," he agreed. "It's especially dreadful because their life spans are so long… thus their children are children for what would be half my life time. I found it simpler to set up my home far enough away that they could come to me if needed, but where I had abundant peace and quiet."

_How could I have thought he meant us harm_, she wondered again?

He lifted the lid off the tightly woven basket. Inside were half dozen fist-sized purple orbs. "Brrka fruit," he noted. He looked back up. "Your brother has been telling a little about your work. Quite impressive for one so young."

"He tends to exaggerate," she breezed, arching an eyebrow at him.

"Does he?"

"Well…" She felt vaguely uncomfortable. "I don't know what he told you."

"Oh… he sang a few praises, said you're very effective at what you do."

"He did?" She felt of a ripple of elation run through her. Luke?

"It was very different on my homeworld," Sarin told her. "Women did not hold positions of authority although they were revered as the bearers of our children. When they married they left their father's care and their wealth, property, even children if they already had them became their husband's property."

The corners of her mouth turned down. That was nothing new. "Many worlds persist in treating women as the weaker sex," she told him, "be it in regards to their intelligence or strength, but there are also those where men are seen as inferior, such as the Hapes Consortium."

"And that pleases you?" Sarin queried.

"I should be above saying 'yes,'" she responded, "Since my home planet was a staunch advocate of equality, not only the equality of the sexes, but of class and culture. But… at the same time, I do find it less offensive." She smiled to herself. "I should be able to help it, be completely impartial, but I must admit I'm not. I've been stuck too many times in conference rooms with men obsessed with furthering their power, and I can't help thinking how much simpler the galaxy would be if _their _presence was forbidden for a day."

"Would you have your brother forbidden as well?"

"Of course not," she hastened. "Unless he christens himself Borrsk Fey'lya…"

"One of the aforementioned males you'd like to forbid?"

"Or banish."

Sarin sobered. "I wish I'd spent enough time in the Core to _see it all_, as they used to say. Women had very different roles in our culture, particularly women such as your self. On Yashuvhu our women who were Force-sensitive were highly prized and valued. They were often selected to carry the children of our Jedi."

She tried not to let her disgust show. Morality and traditions went hand in hand, as unique to each world as the language or dress. She'd long learned that what she considered to be repugnant was perfectly acceptable in other cultures and she'd read the pro Imperial literature on the Jedi, painting them as kidnappers of young children. Stirpiculture - genetic manipulation - was not recently charted territory, though among the human population of the galaxy it was scorned. "Stacking the odds in your favor?"

He shrugged, unbiased. "It was considered an honor and it was a better system than the old Council had, seeking infants for their schools, taking children from their parents."

"I thought those were rumors?"

"It was done," he replied boldly. "Not discussed openly but condoned in private. We knew of it. It was their own fault that they resorted to such measures. I always found suppressing the urge to mate, to reproduce, what many call a genetic drive as powerful as thirst, much more ignominious. It didn't do for adults to live that way, Jedi or not. We made allowances."

"Where you came from... Were they forced to give up their children as well on your world?" She heard the shrill tone of her voice and forced herself to calm down. "I'm sorry. My feelings aren't very objective under the circumstances."

Sarin let out a sigh and stared blankly ahead of him. "I never knew my mother if that answers your question. But I didn't suffer for it. It was the way it was. There _were _also those who went against the train of conventional thinking. It was tolerated and accepted."

She hesitated. "Luke never knew our mother. I have few memories of her and I find the idea that any woman would allow their body to be no more than a vessel, to create a life without love, utterly despicable." No sooner had she said the words than she wanted to take them back. Sanctimonious moral outrage aside, who was she to lecture anyone on how life should be created out of love? Who was she to lecture?

"Many thought that way." Holding out his age-stiffened hands in a gesture of harmlessness, he sat and picked up a piece of the Brrka fruit, peeling back the rough pockmarked skin. "The future will be different for you and your children Leia."

"Yes," she said quietly, wondering if Luke had talked to him about her, about her reluctance to train with him. "Where is my brother?"

"Nursing his disappointment a little ways off."

_Oh_. "I take it you're not coming with us?"

Sarin continued peeling pulpy strands of rind off the Brrka fruit. "What remains here very nearly _did _destroy you. I cannot leave."

Again, he _knew _somehow. She thought of what Luke had told her at the deceased Jedi's cave, that evil contaminated, that Yoda had told him places where the Dark Side was overpowering were often guarded by protectorates of the innocent. Tenuous pieces of a puzzle tumbled into place and she began to understand, or thought she did. "Were you there? Is that why he let me go?"

Sarin lifted a finger to his lips.

"You've been… _shielding _us haven't you? The Yrashu were sent to physically protect us from anything on Baskarn, and you've been doing the same from whatever was out there."

He gave an imperceptible nod.

_Why wouldn_'_t he have told Luke_?

The question had not evolved into spoken words when Sarin set down his fruit and seized her hands. "You understand why I must stay here," he told her severely.

_No! No_! She wanted to shout at him. The intensity in his eyes frightened her off. "Why?"

Sarin shook his head harder and tightened his grip on her fingers. "Destiny calls and we answer, no matter what sacrifices we make along the way. I made my peace with that long ago. Believe me there's nothing more I'd rather do than follow your brother, but I can't. I don't trust him to understand."

More of Luke's words flooded back. _Bound until death to prevent trespassing_. Was he trapped here? If he couldn't leave, Luke could help him.

The pupils of Sarin's eyes became pools of black with gold edges. "_Tol_'_hi_'_denata_," he murmured. "You _must _listen to me. A Jedi who walks knowingly into danger walks alone. That is how it has always been. If he returns, I cannot help him. Even I have limits to my capabilities. Your brother has learned his lessons the hard way in the past, I _know _that."

Leia sank into a dazed stupor. _How _did he know that? Yes, Luke had foolishly rushed to confront Vader on Bespin alone and nearly been killed. It was Vader who had saved him when he confronted the Emperor over Endor, but still he had prevailed, both times. She chewed her lower lip. "My brother… as inexperienced as you may believe him to be is quite powerful," she told him. "I've _seen _what he can do. He won't give up so easily on you."

"You must convince him then."

"Convince him?"

"As it stands, he believes I will take a few days to consider his request. When he arrives at the Base, I will send him a message. Until then I'm asking you to do everything in your power to prevent him from coming back."

_What sort of message_?

"Please. Agree."

"All right," she whispered.

Sarin nodded. "Good. Now…" he shook her hands lightly. "Relax for a moment."

She surprised herself by obeying, despite the fact that she felt confused, saddened, and uncertain all at once. _He wouldn_'_t come with them_...

It was a familiar pose, one Luke used at the beginning of his lessons. Usually she reflexively tensed up and braced her elbows rigidly against her sides.

_"This is a simple meditative technique between two people_," he would sigh, as though that fact could change anything.

Her brother's expectations of her tended to make her so nervous she couldn't concentrate, but Sarin didn't have the same effect on her. Her breathing and heartbeat slowed, until her being coursed with tangible awareness of life and energy humming around them like a thick and heavy static field, layered between the trees, the ground, and the plants, the insects. It touched and connected all, so that they were pieces of the same all-encompassing and awe-inspiring energy. It swept through every molecule of her body, making her suffuse with peacefulness and the vital force of life.

Sarin said, "This is my home and where I belong. Within this realm, know that you are safe."

"I do," she whispered.

"And if for any reason your brother will not heed you, do _not _follow him. You know what will happen."

_What will happen? What will happen_?

"Search your heart and promise me." 

* * *

Han tugged at his ear, half-listening to the voices speaking to him and focused on the jungle straight ahead. The Duro whose charmed opinion of New Republic superiors mirrored his own, Private Raniss, stood next to him holding a pair of electrobinoculars that did nothing more than allow one to view the webby veins of the leaves a hundred times close-up. Great for a myopic botanist, not for much else.

"You still think we should head directly south?"

Han nodded, tugged his ear harder. He kept expecting Luke and Leia to magically materialize out of thin air.

_Come on Luke_, he thought. _I know you'll have gotten the two of you this far. And then… things aren't looking so good but we'll worry about that later_.

It was hard to forget. SpecForce had sent out an officer with each six-man team. Their token annoying black and crimson suit (yes, it came in _ground _wear, there was only a thin line of red near the collar) was always hovering in his peripheral vision. The medtech accompanying them was also a grim reminder that they were willing to subdue Luke by any means necessary.

Han mentally rattled off Admiral Ley'kel's list of conditions.

When they found them, he was not to reveal anything about the impending charges. Not one little word until they'd been questioned, lest he be charged as an accomplice after the fact. If Luke put up a struggle, along with everyone being set for stun, both the medtech and the SpecForce officer were armed with sleep-inducers, the close range jabbers favored by Twi'leks. He would be unconscious before he knew what had hit him. Two air-ambulances were on standby. If Han intervened he would, once again, be charged for impeding an arrest.

The only reason he had given his word at all was that Ley'kel had assured him Leia was to be taken in with kid gloves. "I say we keep heading south," he said, loud enough for the others to hear him.

Agent Batille concurred, speaking into his earband receiver. "We're going to maintain our current course as planned. We'll be in contact. Out."

They moved forward. A puffed-up bird lurched into the air and cried out, visibly distressed by their trespassing. A quick perusal of the nearest giant provided a glimpse of its nest, along with several speckled beaks poking hungrily above the rim. Han watched the mother flip and dance above them, screeching to protect her young, then said, "I take it no one else has found a trace of them yet?"

Batille shook his head. "Nothing."

The pair of stun cuffs dangling from the officer's belt caught his attention again. Maybe he would merely ask Luke to surrender and escort him to the rescue shuttle. That was if they could even find a place for the shuttle to land. Baskarn's forest was not proving to be technologically accommodating, not on their sensors, not on their enviro-analyzer and not on their portable power generator. Moisture was seeping in through the hermetic seals on their delicate electronics and frying the circuits. One more day and they'd need to replace the sensors. Han had a hard time imagining what Luke and Leia had been up against over the last two weeks.

Batille swiped at his glistening forehead with his sleeve. "I haven't said this before, but it's good you're with us General," the agent told him. "I know how difficult this must be for you."

Han lifted an eyebrow. "Sure."

"No, sincerely. You know Skywalker – he'll listen to you. We'd all prefer for this to go as smoothly as possible."

He glanced at the stun cuffs again. "Keep your toys and weapons away from him if you mean it. Luke _will _want to clear this up."

Batille regarded him as though he'd lost his mind. "Clear this up Sir?" He threw a glance over his shoulder at the team. "Are we ready to go?" 

* * *

"I think we should turn back," Luke said, stopping for the fourth time and turning behind him.

"You promised," she reminded him sternly. "He asked for a few days to think about it and you agreed."

"But it doesn't make any sense," he argued. "_Why_?"

"Let him decide."

Luke regarded her warily, briefly allowing his consciousness to rage against her own, ripe with unfiltered irritation. It was more than a feeling. It was the way Sarin had looked at him when they said their good-byes. Mournful. Unless he was mistaken, he had also interrupted a conspirative conversation between Leia and Sarin, the subject of which Leia was as a tight on as the lid of a gambler's profit box. "Did he tell you something, anything at all this morning?"

"It wasn't anything important."

"Let _me _decide. Tell me."

"Luke, come on."

"If it wasn't anything why won't you tell me what you talked about?"

"Why does it matter now?" she pleaded. "We'll reach the search party within an hour, right? Luke we're so close-"

"He could have come with us today," he argued. "I don't know why he wouldn't. No one at the base has to know what he was doing here, _where _he came from. We could say he crashed years ago, that we found him just after we went down. They don't know there was a base here."

"Luke, if he decides to follow he will. You can't force him to. He's a grown man who's lived here for decades. Give him time."

"I just... I have this feeling he's not going to come." He sighed again and kicked at a wayward root. "And then... I have this feeling I'm not going to see him again, that if I don't turn back now..."

"Of course you'll see him again," she reassured him.

_No you won't_...

Unknowingly he'd opened himself to her inner reaction. It drowned out her response. She was deceiving him, purposely. "Sister, your thoughts betray you," he said.

She flinched, swallowed. "I don't know what you're-"

He squared his hand on her shoulder and caught her chin when she tried to look away. He touched her emotions again. She was doing a better job of concealing them, but still, he sensed grief and uncertainty. "Yes you do," he hissed. "What did he tell you and when were you going to tell me?"

"Please don't do this," she begged softly. "He asked me not to say anything and it's not fair of you to trick me into breaking my word."

"Leia he might be the only Jedi I find, _ever_."

"You don't know that…" Regaining a semblance of that well-honed control, she straightened her shoulders and tightened her small hands into fists. "If you respect him, you have to respect his wishes."

"He assured me he would send a message," he mumbled bitterly.

"He will. He told me he would."

Plain as day, he knew whatever contact he received was not going to be Sarin in person. That decided it for him. "I'm going back," he told her, removing his pack and dropping it by her feet. "You go ahead and find the team. I'll catch up later."

"No," she exclaimed, grabbing his arm with an iron grip powered by sheer desperation. "I need you to come with me!"

A pang of guilt cut through him. "Cut it out. What difference is a few hours going to make?"

"Luke, _please_."

He shook her off. "Leia-"

"You won't find him again," she burst out.

He narrowed his eyes angrily. "What do you _mean _I won't find him? We're barely two kilometers away." 

* * *

"Okay hold it," the sensor analyst called, holding the pack's antenna above his head while he studied the incoming data. "I'm getting a reading that is human about sixty meters…" He edged his chin to the left. "That way."

NRI Agent Batille clicked his receiver on. "Come in." He covered the mouthpiece with his hand and frowned at the analyst's sensor's kit. The top-of-the-line kit was comprised of a spectrometer, a temperature monitor, a lifesign tracer, and had been modified to distinguish between an Yrashu and a human. Still, they'd been picking up false positives all day. Twice they'd caught sight of the emerald furred alien primates fleeing into the undergrowth after hapless pursuits. Nobody on the team was keen on sprinting when the readings came in at this point. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure this time," the analyst assured them, rolling his eyes. "_Two _humans."

"This is the center team," Batille relayed. "We've got another lock on what may be Skywalker and Organa."

The analyst studied his datapad again and shook his head. "It's one again. The second moved out of range."

Han took the lead and began fighting his way through the brush and vines in the direction he had indicated, calling their names. The pounding of stealthy footsteps followed him. Thirty steps later he caught sight of Leia, alone, lost in a sea of vines of leaves. Rather than facing the oncoming pandemonium, her back was to them. He shouted to her.

She turned slowly. "Ha-" Her eyes widened. "Behind you!"

He watched her hand drop to the blaster at her side and snatch it up and waved his hands frantically back at Batille – the _idiot_ – was probably aiming hisblaster at _her_. "Leia no!"

A flash of green zinged over his shoulder and hit her squarely in the chest. A second followed, this time grazing his arm with a piercing sting, but Leia was already down. The tree behind her exploded into a shower of bark and smoldering wood. Han reflexively pivoted and drew his own weapon.

Everything erupted into chaos.

A roar sounded and a shadow dropped across his field of vision just as he was turning. Instinctively, he dropped back and rolled with barely time to fire a shot off at the snarling blur flying overhead. A somersault got him out of the way. There were two more blasts, and the deafening sounds of a man screaming, eerily strangled into gurgles and bubbling. Then quiet.

Han pushed himself to his feet, keeping his blaster ready and choking on the acrid scent of ozone and singed fur. Their team medtech lay wide-eyed and spread eagle beneath the bulk of the creature, with his neck snapped upward in an unnatural position. The feline's half vaporized head stared back at him with one unseeing eye, pink saliva trickling from its open mouth onto the medtech's collar. It took Han another moment to figure out why the man's head was twisted into such an unnatural position. The horned snout had cleaved clean through the back of his neck and exited beneath his larynx.

Han tightened his grip around his blaster, reached out with one foot and gave it a kick. Neither beast nor man moved.

Raniss approached and dropped to a crouch. "He's gone. It went through his spinal cord."

_Leia_. He scrambled to his feet and hurried over to her, felt his heart sink. He checked to make sure her pulse and breathing were steady, then ran his hands over her to make sure she was otherwise unharmed.

Batille strode over with the medtech's EV pack, giving Command their coordinates. "We have Councilor Organa," he informed them. "One body." He listened to whoever was on the other end, then said. "No, not Skywalker. We'll rendezvous with the other teams and go after him." He paused again. "He ran, Sir."

_Ran_, Han thought. _Where did he go_? He eyed the gaping hole blasted through the trunk behind where Leia had fallen, smelled that his clothing had been signed. Someone on this team had _not _been set for stun. "Who the hell fired that last blast at her?" he demanded. "She was aiming for that thing, not at us."

One of the younger officers stepped forward. "It might have been me. I was behind the tiger and saw it flying…" He shrugged miserably. "I don't know? It happened so fast…"

Batille kept talking. "We're not sure. Councilor Organa is unconscious. We can't ask her. "You'll need the long-lines. There's not enough room to land."

The other men were gathered around the carnage, in the gruesome process of prying the beast off the medtech's body. Han eyed their weapons. Each one was flashing red, on vaporize, no doubt switched during the attack, except for the medtech's… The medtech had fired the stun blast and his haste had cost him his life.

"Batille," Han said harshly. "If these men can't fire at a moving target at close range…"

"He said it was an accident, General. Now Command wants to know if you want to head back on the air ambulance or come with us?"

Han took a deep breath. Accident or not… why did he have a feeling it hadn't been an accident? He looked down at Leia again, felt the eyes of everyone present watching him. If he didn't go back with her there was no way of knowing if the guilty party – if there were one - would end up as her escort. He couldn't risk sending her back unconscious, defenseless. And Luke could defend himself against anything, right? He grimaced. Luke also should have known that she was in danger, but there was no sign of him.

"Solo?" Batille asked again.

"I'm in the air," he said tersely, watching everyone's faces and searching for the slightest sign of an assassin's disappointment. There wasn't even a flicker. 


	7. Chapter 7

**~Chapter 7~**

Traveling with a corpse in a confined spaces was one of those unpleasantries Han's nose was telling him wasn't such a great idea. Leaning back to crack the rusted vent behind his head, he let the whoosh of fresh air hit him straight in the face.

They hadn't needed two transports for three passengers. At least the _live _medtech on board had insisted they leave the body by the rear hatch. That way, the tech had explained (_see these grates_), it would be easier to unload him and rinse the blood off the floors. Practical thinking outweighed any respect for the deceased. Not that Han disagreed. It meant he got to recline on the spare stretcher and the first thing Leia saw when she came to wasn't a dead body.

He reached over and readjusted the jacket he'd draped over her back. A monitor was wound around her wrist, beeping at slightly increased rate. The medtech had injected her with comaren to help ease the tingling and fogginess caused by the stun. Han had been hit so many times by stun blasts he'd lost count, and he'd always wished there was a magical potion to make the after-effects go away. For her sake he hoped the comaren worked. She looked bedraggled. Her clothes were filthy and torn, her face and neck were covered with scratches. Han could not remember her ever being as light in his arms as she had been when he picked her up.

_Nice way to be rescued_. A stun blast in the chest for trying to save a man's life. He tightened his grip on the three fingers he was holding.

This time they twitched and the sensors started beeping faster. He said her name softly.

She groaned once, and then her entire body jerked. She drew in a deep breath that sounded as though she was resurfacing from under water after holding it for a long time.

The medtech, having heard the monitor's alert, returned from the forward cabin. "Coming out of it, are we?"

"Almost there."

Her eyes snapped open and she pushed herself up, steadying herself against the bulkhead behind her. She took another deep breath and began the gradual process of acquainting herself with her surroundings, taking in the pair of stretchers, that she was on one, craning her neck to peer down the aisle into the cockpit. The transport's engines were loud with the vent cracked, familiar enough for her to know they were mid flight. Her gaze finished back with him. "Han?"

"How about some water?" the medtech suggested, reaching into an overhead compartment and retrieving a bottle. He uncapped it and held it out to her. "It'll help with the dry mouth."

"Thank you," she whispered. She held it, but made no move to drink from it and kept staring at him.

Han prayed that whatever thoughts were running through her head did not all begin with _I hate you_. "Do you know where you are?"

The blank expression didn't fade. "Someone stunned me?" She turned to the heap on the floor past the end of the stretcher. "Who is that? What happened? I saw… I saw... something was flying toward the man behind you-"

"That's him there. Thought you were aiming _for _him and didn't see it coming. The tiger, I mean."

"He's dead?"

"It all happened pretty fast."

"Oh _no_." Her brows anxiously rose. "Where's Luke?"

Han shook his head. "We didn't pick him up."

As if on cue, the mere mention of the Jedi's name produced General Ley'kel. Han was pretty sure one of the intercoms in the back had been broadcasting their meagre conversation thus far into the cockpit, and made a vain effort to be cordial by introducing him. "Leia, this is General Ley'kel."

Ley'kel nodded. "Councillor Organa. We have a few questions for you."

"Hey!" Han warned. "Give her a minute. She's barely figured out where she is."

Leia frowned at him. "I do _too _know where I am."

"Councillor," Ley'kel began. "I apologize for asking so soon but we thought we had Luke Skywalker on the sensors with you."

She slumped back. "You _did_."

Which brought Han back to the festering thought, _why the hell had Luke taken off_?

She looked back at Han. "You recovered the _Razion's Edge_? They know someone tried to kill us?"

Han nodded.

"Do you know _who _yet?"

"Your Highness," Ley'kel interjected. "Skywalker? He was with you right before the team arrived, correct?"

The General might have well been invisible. "Oh Han. Luke's in trouble. One of us needs to go back."

"We can't turn around now. We're headed back to the base."

"But Han! He's really in trouble," she repeated. "You don't understand-"

"Your Highness, if I may?"

"I can barely _feel _him -"

"_Feel _him," Ley'kel wondered. "How do you mean?"

Han reached for her hand again and squeezed twice. "She's still groggy."

The medtech glanced at the lifesign monitor. "She should be all right to talk now."

Leia caught his warning and squeezed his fingers back to confirm, then set the water down and unwound the sensor from her wrist. "I have a _feeling _he's in trouble," she said, switching the meaning of her words around.

"Do you know where Skywalker was headed?" Ley'kel countered.

Her face registered his question strangely. "No," she said, looking at Han. Clearly she knew something funny was going on. Han rapidly squeezed her hand again. It was an old code, but he did it until she understood. The fact that Ley'kel wasn't asking about Luke with any degree of concern drove the point in. "What's going on?"

Han shrugged helplessly at her. It was as good of a time as any to break the news. "I can't tell you. I'm under a gag order courtesy of SpecForce-"

"Solo!" Ley'kel barked.

"Was I not supposed to tell her that?" Han asked, innocently. "She should at least know why _I'm _not answering any of her questions."

"What's going on here?" she demanded. "Both of you?"

Ley'kel clamped his jaw tightly. "Your Highness, what kind of trouble are you referring to?"

Bewildered by the attention she shook her head. "What kind of trouble are you referring to?"

"Why don't you concentrate on answering my questions right now?"

Her slight frame rose haughtily. "Of course I intend to," she said crisply. "As soon as you return the favour. Now I'd like for one of you to explain to me what this is all about."

Han ignored the General's vicious stare, which plainly said, _this is your fault_. "I'd like to know too," he asked mischievously. "Why don't you brief us both?"

"Councillor," Ley'kel repeated. "This is a New Republic security matter. Why did you say Skywalker's in trouble?"

She gathered up Han's coat and hugged it against her chest. "I don't know."

Either she _didn't_, which seemed illogical considering she'd said it herself, or she was wisely suspicious of the scenario playing itself out, and lying. Han couldn't tell. The transport bucked and rattled as it came into a steep turn, forcing Ley'kel to brace his hands against the ceiling to avoid losing his balance. Through the vents Han spied the atmosphere containment field breaking up as well as crew and droids vacating the landing area. "We're at the base," he said briskly. "Can't this wait?"

"Your Highness," Ley'kel said. "We will be debriefing you shortly but we have three teams on the ground searching for Skywalker now. Any clue as to where he may have gone -"

"_General_." Leia raised her chin regally and cast him a look of disdain. "I don't know where he went. I believe I just told you that."

Ley'kel's dark eyes flashed, and the skin beneath his jaw pinched. Even semi-lucid Leia's tone was firm enough to get the point across. As a Provisional Councillor, she was _his _superior and not the other way around. "I see," he said tersely. "Perhaps you'll remember more when you speak with Admiral Rieekan."

The transport jostled its passengers softly as it landed and the engines whined down. The medtech manoeuvred his way aft, opened the hatch and extended the off ramp. No sooner had he done that than the ground crew climbed up to collect the body, lifting the limp form and bringing it down the a waiting repulsor sled. All three of them watched the solemn procession.

Ley'kel waved his arm. "After you, Councillor."

Leia slid one leg over the edge of the stretcher, tested her bearing and shook her head. "I need a few minutes Han. I don't think I can walk yet."

"We'll call for a repulsor chair-" Ley'kel began.

"What difference is a few minutes going to make?" Han bellowed. "She got stunned on the highest setting, what do you expect?"

"Fine," the General conceded. He strode over to the top of the ramp, crossed his arms and withdrew his comlink. "Admiral Rieekan. We'll be few minutes. I have no message to relay to Officer Batille yet."

Leia gasped and buried her face in his jacket.

Whatever was wrong now Han knew it was bad. Her face was bleached of all color and it was only Ley'kel's presence that prevented him from throwing his arms around her. If Luke was dead, Leia would know, and if the team was responsible… "What is it?" he asked.

"Is she all right?" Ley'kel called. A ring of sincere compassion almost made it through. "The medtech is still outside."

"I don't know," Han said. He watched her close her eyes, breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth, then open them and gaze straight ahead without the tiniest sign that she was actually _seeing _anything. He touched her cheek but nothing changed. "Is it Luke?"

"We have to go back," she whispered. "We have to go back for him."

"Leia, you have to go talk to SpecForce now. I _can't _talk to you until you do. There are teams looking for him now, remember? If he's down there they'll find him." And if he did he hoped Luke wouldn't hesitate to defend himself.

"SpecForce is here?"

Obviously she hadn't noticed Ley'kel's uniform. "An army of them…"

She tried to steady herself, brushed at her dirt-stained coveralls. "Can I borrow your jacket?"

"Sure." He leaned in. "Are you going to be able to handle this? I can try to stall them for you if you want."

"I'll manage." 

* * *

Leia allowed herself to be led through the base without caring where she was going, flanked on one side by Han, on the other by General Ley'kel. Despite permitting her to rest first, her legs were still rubbery. The procession moved briskly and she stumbled trying to keep up. Han caught her elbow and deliberately slowed his pace to hers, forcing the guards ahead and behind them to slow as well. Too many jumbled thoughts were racing through her brain. Han was _here_, but her mind wasn't capable of processing it.

Luke was in trouble, and she needed to go back.

Often Han had asked her what if felt like to share a bond, a link to another person. At times it was like a warm hand on her shoulder, transmitting pieces of Luke's feelings, his conscious thoughts, weakened by distance but strong when he was near. In recent weeks, it had become more intense, more akin to an open comm channel that was locked on and couldn't be shut off between them, a disconcerting nakedness, mental and physical. She could barely feel it now, couldn't feel any part of him past the initial surge of terrifying blackness that had swept over her those first conscious moments on the transport. It felt as though someone had cut off a limb.

SpecForce was on Baskarn, meaning an in depth counterintelligence investigation was underway. It didn't alarm her. They had assumed from the onset that the assassination attempt had been an inside job. Standard protocol dictated they would want her full recollection of the events that had occurred, probably hoped she and Luke had learned something about who was behind it before they ejected. That Han was under orders not to speak with her until after was... _unusual_, but not unheard of. SpecForce tended to rigidly seal its ongoing investigations, even from the New Republic's Inner Council at times. Admittedly, Han didn't look pleased. As she was ushered through the hallways, she eyed his rumpled clothes, trying to get a sense for what had him so on edge.

When they reached the audience chamber her escorts waved her inside. Two members of SpecForce High Command stood at attention behind an oblong steel table on a raised platform. One she recognized as the former commander of the disbanded Infiltrators unit. The other, a woman she didn't recognize at all. General Ley'kel made his way to the front with the others.

The former commander gave a short bow. "Your Highness, we're glad to see you've made it to the base safe and sound. I'm Admiral Rieekan. This is Special Forces Councillor Moda N'dan, and I believe you've met General Ley'kel."

"Briefly," she said warily. Her eyes skimmed the set up; there was one solitary hard-backed chair positioned a step down from the raised oblong steel desk. It was a tactic designed to make individuals feel as though they were under the microscope, keep them nervous, and keep them talking. In her entire career, she had spent many long hours on the other side, very few as a subject. This was more formal than she'd been expecting. She made her way to the chair and perched gingerly on the edge, wondering where Han was supposed to sit. She had an eerie sense that they were regarding her as though she'd done something _wrong_, but she had no idea what, save that it left her feeling oddly guilty and defensive.

"We'd like to ask General Solo to leave for the duration of this interview," Rieekan announced, glaring at Han with an expression so contemptuous it unnerved her. Han's stare back was no less derisive. "These proceedings will be closed."

Han set his hand on the back of her chair. "I'm the Councillor's Security Chief," he hastened. "Someone from Batille's team took a shot at her and I don't think it was an accident. I'm not leaving her alone with _anyone_."

_Did they? Security Chief_? She couldn't remember anything after the stun blast had hit her. "They did?" she asked, looking at Han.

"Yes they did," he insisted.

"This is a New Republic Base, Sir," Ley'kel returned. "She's safer here in our hands than anywhere else. I find your accusation to be preposterous. I've already spoken with Batille and he informed me that one of his men confessed to accidentally firing in her general direction."

"General, it was dead on accuracy, not a wild shot. I'm not leaving," Han maintained, turning to her with a look that clearly meant, '_do something_.'  
Until they could speak privately she decided to follow his lead and intervened. "I request that he be permitted to stay and listen in."

"We can't allow that, Your Highness."

"And why is that?"

"We've had our problems with General Solo since he arrived, and this is only an informal inquiry. There's so reason for him to participate."

_Oh really_, she wondered. At least that explained the waves of animosity rolling off Rieekan in Han's direction. SpecForce did not hold _informal _inquiries. That was like saying Wraith Squadron fired on Tie-Fighters to disarm them. Years of diplomatic training and her upbringing had taught her to use her position's clout when needed to deter any sort of intimidation, which was, she realized, exactly what the Lieutenant Admiral was attempting to do now. Holding herself together, she said, "It seems to me that this is a full investigation. By all rights unless my security clearance has been pulled by Mon Mothma, Crix Madine, or Airen Cracken, I'm allowed to choose one person from my staff to sit with me as council and witness. If you want to contest what I'm entitled to under New Republic law I'm sure we can put this interview off until we can contact Home Fleet."

Councillor N'dan leaned forward, tapping a perfectly manicured and polished fingernail on the porcelain surface of the desk. "Given the history of your relationship with the General, you may be inclined to answer a number of our questions less than truthfully in his presence. We'd prefer the atmosphere not be constrained."

_What in the galaxy is she referring to_? Leia wondered, shaking her head and folding her own torn nails into her palm self-consciously. "The General is in all likelihood already privy to anything you might ask. I have nothing to hide. As I was saying, if you'd prefer to wait until-"

"That won't be necessary, Your Highness," Admiral Rieekan hastened to say. "However if General Solo stays he must refrain from participating and serve only as a silent witness for the duration."

"I'll agree to that," Han said, taking up a less obtrusive position by the door. Leia nodded for them to begin.

Ley'kel flipped on a holographic imager and repositioned it while Rieekan cleared his throat. "First off, we'd like to know why Skywalker left you when the team arrived. General Ley'kel has informed us that you said he was with you."

Dread seeped through her. This was not how she had expected them to begin. Nor had she expected the session to be recorded – not if the proceedings were closed. "He was."

"Can you tell us where he went?"

"I'm sorry but I don't know."

"Did he know the team was on its way?"

"Yes, he did."

"Did you try to stop him?"

"Yes."

"We're… _confused _as to why he would have left you right before you met up with our rescue team."

Too late, Leia grasped that she had been so worried about Luke on her way to the debriefing, that she had not prepared herself for the fact that she was going to have to lie. She couldn't explain to them why Luke had turned back. She'd promised Sarin she wouldn't let the New Republic find the Korriban station. She searched her mind for an escape, some clause in her position she could use to refuse to answer without defying him. "He said… he had to go and that he would make his own way to the base if necessary. He wanted me to go ahead."

"We don't understand why, Your Highness."

Struggling to keep her face unreadable in the overhead light's unforgiving glare, she shook her head. "I don't know why he did."

"You told Generals Solo and Ley'kel that he was in trouble?"

_Why aren't they asking about the shuttle_? "Yes."

"What made you say that?"

"I don't recall."

The questioning disintegrated from there. For fifteen minutes she was forced to tell them again and again that Luke had left her shortly before the team arrived, that she had no idea why, and that her claim that Luke was in trouble must have been a confused utterance on her part. From there the debriefing progressed from bad to worse.

"Give us the location of the escape pod," Rieekan demanded, no longer hiding his irritation with her. He looked as though he was on the verge of tearing his hair out, though he didn't have enough to spare for a self-injurious temper tantrum. "Surely you know the coordinates for it."

Those she knew by heart, but if she directed them to it, the path leading to the Korriban station was easy to see, and their sensors would in all likelihood detect the base if they flew over it. "Luke has them," she replied coolly. "I didn't keep track after we started for the Base."

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Han's less than subtle double take. She knew what he was thinking. _You memorize planetary statistics and the names of government leaders for every diplomatic meeting in the space of an hour and didn't bother to remember where your escape pod went down_.

Rieekan made a strangling sound in the back of his throat. "Your Highness, I find that _very _hard to believe. It's imperative that we find it."

"You'll have to ask General Skywalker when he's brought in," she insisted. "We covered the escape pod in a cloaking device because at the time we didn't know whether or not we had been followed, and we knew we were within traveling distance to the base."

"That's a convenient method to prevent us from recovering it," Rieekan countered.

"It's also standard operating procedure when a vessel crashes in Imperial territory, is it not?" She held out her hands helplessly. "I fail to see why the escape pod is of such interest to you in the first place? You found the shuttle. Don't you know who was responsible for that?"

No one answered.

"Will someone tell me what's going on?"

"Let's start at the beginning. Could you recount for us, to the best of your recollection, the events which occurred prior to your escape pod being launched?"

She took her time, describing in nauseating detail for them finding the thermal detonators and concussion bombs shortly before they were scheduled to land, including Luke's assertion that he had been instructed to leave the shuttle on autopilot and only his switching it off had sparked the re-set tones. Rieekan interrupted her frequently to ask about Luke's mental state; had he seemed surprised, had he seemed nervous on the flight out there, who found the detonators first, what was Luke's reaction when he peeled back the paneling beneath the C-board. The interminable session dragged on until her throat was hoarse and her voice was cracking. Longingly, she pictured the untouched water she'd left on the stretcher in the air ambulance. No one made a move to offer her a drink.

"Your Highness," Rieekan said when she was done. "You may not be aware of this but after you and General Skywalker jettisoned the escape pod, the _Razion's Edge _was somehow set back on course for the base. At first we assumed it was a relay transmission from a ship nearby, but we were unable to detect another craft following you out of hyperspace. In acting with standard security defense measures we were forced to fire upon it. The entire shuttle exploded and was destroyed. Examination of the wreckage turned up the thermal detonators and concussion bombs. At this point, we've come to the conclusion that the shuttle was intended for the base."

Her heart sank. "We feared that as well," she said quietly. "But Luke did his best to send her down away from…." _A relay transmission_? She shook her head. "The shuttle was not on autopilot when we left it."

"It was reactivated after you launched the escape pod," Rieekan said.

"It… it must have been," she said weakly, though she had no idea how.

"You understand why we're interested in finding the escape pod, Your Highness?"

She swallowed. "No."

"It's the only place the remote could have been located."

The tone of the debriefing suddenly began to make sense. What Rieekan was suggesting, was getting at, slammed into her at lightspeed. She almost spun to glare at Han, ask him why he hadn't warned her, but he hadn't had the chance with Ley'kel hovering around on the transport. "There was no remote in the escape pod," she replied. "Someone must have dropped out of hyperspace behind us and activated it."

"We've searched the HOS records," Rieekan replied coldly. "Your vessel was the only one that entered the system."

"There was no remote in the escape pod."

He studied her critically. "Let's return to the day you departed. Skywalker had returned from Folor only hours before?"

She groaned inwardly, let her tone chill. "Yes, but we've been over this."

"He replaced another pilot at the last minute?"

"Yes."

"The deck officer on duty has told us you seemed surprised to see him."

"I was. I didn't know until shortly before we left."

"Did he tell you what made him decide to request that assignment?"

"I fail to see the relevance."

"It's relevant to us. Now did General Skywalker tell you why he asked for the assignment?"

She cast a weary and frustrated expression Han's way. "He wanted to see me."

"He requested this assignment because he wanted to see you?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"For personal reasons."

"Would you care to elaborate for us?"

"No I wouldn't."

To her relief Rieekan didn't press the issue. "Did he inform you that he was resigning his commission?"

"Yes, but I already knew that."

"This is the second time he's done this in the past year, is it not?"

"Yes."

"And… he entered back into service shortly before he was assigned as an instructor at Folor."

"Yes."

"Now, back to when you left Home Fleet. Who arrived at the shuttle first?"

"General Skywalker had no way of knowing those were on board," she muttered tersely. "Has anyone spoken to whoever ran the diagnostic check before we left Home Fleet?"

Ley'kel held up a piece of flimsiplast and paused to study it. "Yes, we have."

_As if_, she mused angrily, _he wouldn't know what's on it by heart_. "And?"

"Who arrived at the shuttle first?"

"Luke did. What do the diagnostic checks indicate?"

"These records indicate the shuttle was checked thoroughly that morning. The remote autopilot relay system was overlooked."

"Regardless of the remote system, records can be altered, scans can be copied and fed to the terminals," she exclaimed. "As far as I can surmise, there was someone on the inside involved in this, and they just as easily could have changed the records." She shook her head. High Command frequently falsified vessel records, keeping the legitimate ones encrypted, if they felt they might be unsafe in the mainframe system. They were generally used to cover bacta and weapons transports they feared might be intercepted. "The New Republic does it all the time, Admiral."

"With his military clearance, he would have had access to the central system codes."

_Not likely_, Leia conceded. Even if he'd had them before he left he would have had to file a request and get it approved for the new codes when he returned from Folor. "I don't think he would have had the most recent ones," she said.

Ley'kel let slip a wisp of smug victory, clasping his hands together in front of him. "According to our records he requested and was given the central system codes a few hours before you left."

Her internal dialogue unravelled. There was no plausible reason Luke would have needed them once they'd left the base, although… there was always the possibility Luke had used his clearance to see if the files on Anakin Skywalker had been transferred to Intelligence. She couldn't tell them though, even if it proved he had not used them to falsify the diagnostic records.

"Does that surprise you?"

"No."

Her pause was duly noted. "You seem uncertain, Your Highness."

"No. It doesn't surprise me." Ley'kel and Rieekan watched her and said nothing, as though they expected her to keep going.

Ley'kel resumed questioning. "Then, back to when you were in the escape pod, you said General Skywalker used his abilities to veer the shuttle off course."

"Yes."

"And then he allowed it to continue on its current course towards the base."

"He _didn't _know and there was no remote," she maintained. "Directing it into the atmosphere was taxing on him. We're talking about a Lambda-class shuttle here, with all due respect, General. He had enough to worry about considering _we _ejected straight into the atmosphere ourselves. At that point I think he was more concerned with getting _us _to the surface in one piece."

Rieekan swaggered around the desk, crossed his arms and marched from one end to the other. "But, this same General Skywalker has accomplished what one might call extraordinary feats in the past, using his powers, has he not? Against the _Death Star_? Against the Emperor? The Ssi-Ssi Ruuk at Bakura? Promoted after Milagro?"

Her anxiety intensified. While Luke's closest friends and a number of the New Republic command respected his talents as a Jedi, many others regarded it as a semi-fantastical religion, myth exaggerated by age and old legends. Those who neither respected nor disbelieved it feared him in the same way that different species feared death, feared what was unknown and incomprehensible to them. To accomplish so much for the Alliance, have the Empire's defeat rest in part on his shoulders, led to the inevitable skepticism.

_He walked away after facing the Emperor and Darth Vader… What would have become of us if he weren't on our side_?

It was a dangerous train of thought. If SpecForce viewed him as a threat, they would find a way to use his own capabilities against him as evidence. A fraction of suspicion would swell uncontrollably. She was tempted to halt the proceedings, demand she be allowed to speak with Airen Cracken or Mon Mothma before it went any further, but reconsidered. If she played along, she might learn more about what they knew. "Yes, those are among his many accomplishments serving the Alliance and the New Republic. And," she leaned forward in her seat, "need I remind you all we might not be here were it not for his efforts?"

"That his services have exalted him within the ranks as something of a hero is not in question here," Rieekan stressed.

"But it _is_," she replied. "Based on his reputation this conversation is moot. If I'm not mistaken, you're implying he had something to do with this. I do not, nor have I ever, had reason to suspect General Skywalker of doing anything but serving the Alliance and the New Republic to the best of his abilities. While I'm unclear what transpired I can assure you when we find answers you'll see that he's innocent."

"Your Highness, we've been weeding out Imperial subjects and spies within our ranks for years now. No one, not even lauded heroes of the Alliance are above inspection…"

"I'm well aware of that," she snapped. "And I'm also aware that whoever is behind it is on the _inside_. But it wasn't General Skywalker."

"The physical evidence we've gathered cannot be disputed. We've established you were alone with him when you crashed, when you began your journey, when you were rescued, yet he chose to flee before we could take him into custody. Add to that the fact that you're _withholding _or have _forgotten _the whereabouts of a key piece of evidence."

"If he was responsible why would he have made his way to the base all this time?"

"Perhaps he didn't expect to find anyone left alive here. Perhaps he was hoping to find salvage teams from Home Fleet and make his escape after he arrived."

_Of all the flimsily put together cases for treason_... "That's absurd!"

"And where is he now? You've told us you don't know why he left you. We're well aware of his Jedi talents, and that it's within his power to manipulate memories. How do we know he hasn't simply removed all evidence of treason?"

Leia forced herself to take a deep breath. _Calm down and think_. It was all she could do to not scream and shout at them while her brain processed the overload of information. The best she could do was to not permit them to trick her into incriminating him, though gods knew she was doing nothing to assuage their theories so far. The damage was irredeemable and inviolability was not an option. Luke would not want her to reveal what they'd found. "I know General Skywalker well and I assure you there are plausible explanations for each of your concerns. Now, may I ask if you're planning on charging him?"

Councillor N'dan, who'd been making notes throughout the debriefing, handed her datapad to Admiral Rieekan. She sat slightly apart from the two men. Her role was primarily to assess a debriefees reactions and facial expressions. One did not, as a matter of fact, serve as a psychological evaluator for the elite corps and intelligence without impeccably sharp perceptive skills. Allowing operatives to serve in deep cover was too dangerous; too dangerous if they were emotionally unprepared to handle stress, if their loyalty could be swayed, if they carried deep seeded personal vendettas that might otherwise drive them to suicide. Rieekan read it, nodded, and gestured for her to speak.

It was not what Leia was expecting at all.

"In regards to your personal relationship with General Skywalker, would you care to elaborate on how you came to be associated with him in the first place?" N'dan queried.

Leia stared in wonder. "That's public record, is it not?" She'd hardly met a soul in the past five years who didn't know the story. There were holonovels dedicated to it.

"In your own words, Your Highness, if you will."

She clenched her fists tight against her legs and wondered if it would insult them if she stood up. Her legs were still tingly. "He and General Solo rescued me from the first _Death Star_ shortly before I was to be executed. General Skywalker was an instrumental player in the Battle of Yavin, as was General Solo. They both joined the Alliance in the succeeding days. I've served with both of them for many years."

"General Skywalker also rescued you when you were being held by Prince Xizor, former head of the Black Sun on Coruscant?"

"Yes."

"On Tatooine, when Jabba the Hutt held you prisoner?"

"Yes."

"Attempted to rescue you from Cloud City on Bespin?"

"Yes."

"In light of these many, many instances where he has put your life above his own, is it safe to say you would do the same?"

It was a trick. "I would _not _lie for him or betray the New Republic to protect him," she replied.

"And you don't believe he tampered with your memory?"

"No."

"Let's return to you personal relationship with him."

_You have to be kidding me_. Leia didn't dare look at Han for fear she'd start laughing like a crazy person. Enough pilots and crew within the Alliance knew Han and Luke had both vied for her affection for it not to be common, albeit ancient gossip. In addition, half the galaxy knew she and Han had been linked romantically since the Battle of Endor. "We're very close, Councillor, but beyond that there's never been any involvement that wasn't professional."

"Are you sure, Your Highness? You've already stated he wanted to see you for personal reasons."

"If you're implying that he tried to involve me in what I assure you are trumped up charges against him – involve me based on misdirected infatuation, you're grasping at thin air."

Councillor Moda N'dan stood, smoothed her uniform, and stepped round the front of the table. "That's not exactly what we're implying, Your Highness."

"What are you implying then?"

She shrugged. "Call us merely curious. Throughout General Skywalker's last assignment, we have a number of outgoing and incoming messages between you two. And he did, prior to your departure from Coruscant, accept this mission – one in which you both had extensive opportunity to spend time alone and work together."

Leia took a deep breath. There was one way to put an end to this quickly. "Under the circumstances it's hardly unusual."

"And the circumstances you're referring to?"

"General Skywalker and I are extremely close, yes, as would be expected. He's my brother."

The room descended into dead silence so profound that the ticking of the holographic recorder reverberated off the bare durasteel walls.

"It's not in your dossier," Rieekan said slowly.

"No it isn't," she said. "I was adopted by Bail Organa as a child. I never learned who my real parents were. We only discovered the truth recently and chose to keep it private."

"Who knows this?"

"Several of our closet friends," she said. "General Solo, Commander Wedge Antilles, Lando Calrissian, my aide Winter…"

"General Solo," Rieekan prompted. "Can you verify this?"

"I can," Han said.

"How long have you known?" Rieekan asked.

_Always_, she thought. _I don't know exactly how but I did. Luke where are you_? She mentally reached for him again, opening herself in all directions, delved into the void where she'd last sensed him. There was nothing. "Since after the Battle of Endor."

"That was almost three years ago, Your Highness. I wouldn't say that's recent."

"That's a matter of perspective. "

"Or deliberate secrecy."

She tipped her chin and met his challenge. "It was _our _business, Admiral, not the New Republic's." The cut-off circulation to her legs was now painfully distracting. She pushed herself up with as much grace as she could summon, and went instantly cold and numb all over.

Standing there facing the panel's accusing faces, two events occurred, both so extreme she felt as though the wind had been knocked from her chest. The first was a gush of warmth and wetness between her legs. The second, a pull, less pronounced than her brother's abrupt break, but no less poignant and piercing. There was no pain, no panic, no fight, no _knowing_ - merely a peaceful dimming of the Force's burgeoning light, of its promise, of its future.

"Your Highness?" Rieekan prodded. "I don't see how-"

She tightened Han's long jacket around her. _This can't be happening_…

"Your Highness?"

_Please don't let this be happening_…

"Councillor Organa?"

She closed her eyes and blocked out their voices until she felt someone's hand rest on her back.

"Leia, are you all right?"

_Please get me out of here... Please_… "No. I'm… not all right," she whispered shakily. "I need to go to the medcenter." 

* * *

Han at first assumed it was a sheer act of genius on her part. Under New Republic statutes, no person could be refused medical treatment, even pending an interrogation, and since she wasn't under arrest or being charged, SpecForce had no choice but to allow her to go. It was the perfect way to buy time. Her lies and convenient amnesia throughout the session had not escaped his notice, and more ominously, not escaped SpecForce's notice. What they'd make of the session after reviewing it worried him. They'd been playing hardball with her, and only the fact that he would have been ousted from the chamber had made him refrain from jumping in.

He was reeling slightly from what she'd told them, not sure that had been in her best interest. Not if they knew who _he _was, and with that tidbit of information she'd given them a case for collusion, although Moda N'dan's questioning had left her little choice.

The medcenter was one wing away from the command center. By the time they arrived, she was pale as a sheet, her lips trembling. He followed her into the examining room, bracing himself against the usual odours of bacta and sharp chemicals and realized that something _was _terribly wrong. It wasn't a ploy.

No sooner did the door whir shut behind them than she broke down in tears. "I can't feel _anything_," she sobbed. "_Nothing_."

It was Luke. It had to be. His heart sank. Her brother was the only person she'd ever been able to feel. "If it's Luke-"

The door whirred open again and an MD droid strode in. "Please list physical  
complaints-"

"No," she choked. "I want a real medic and not an MD!"

"Uh…" Han shrugged and turned to the MD. "Could you locate a medic for us?"

"Sir," the automated voice droned, "I am equipped with-"

Han rolled his eyes. He hated arguing with people. He hated arguing with droids, whose sensory input didn't process commands, even more. "Just do it!"

The dismissed MD droid twittered something about difficult patients and locating the Chief Medic on staff and left the room.

"Leia," Han sighed, taking her by the shoulders. "I don't know what's going on." The tears kept streaming down her face, dripping off her chin onto his jacket, leaving streaks in the dust in grime. "Tell me if it's Luke."

She shuddered and looked up at him. "Han. If you… if you… if you… If I could ever do anything that would make you hate me – that you think you could hate me for-"

_What was that supposed to mean? Did she think I hated her when I left_? "No," he hushed. "How could you even think that? I've been here looking for you two since the day after your shuttle went down. "

That only made her cry harder. "You have?"

He hugged her to his chest, stroked the mane of dark hair. "Of course I have. Now what do we need a medic for?"

"_Why did they fire at me - why did he do that - I can't feel anything Han - I can't feel her…_"

The babbling was muffled and incoherent. He gripped the loose fabric of his jacket between his fingers and dragged her back. "I don't understand. You're not telling me what's wrong and I don't know what you mean by _her_-" In the process of pushing her back his jacket had slid partway off, and he could see the blood soaking the insides of her pant legs, dark grey on faded grey, crimson flushing the white table covering beneath her. He went rigid. He knew enough about women to know it wasn't normal. The stun blast? On the rare occasion, they were known to cause internal trauma but….

She folded at the waist over her knees. "_I can't feel her and I can't make it stop…_"

Cold fear seized him. Marching back to the door, he switched it open and snapped at the two guards Rieekan had ordered to tag along to get the medic _now_. Then he returned and slid his hand over her stomach, felt her ribcage expanding and contracting wildly against his palm with each breath, probed lower: she didn't flinch. "Leia, where does it hurt?"

"It's not that," she sobbed. "It's not me…"

"Sweetheart, you're bleeding." He glanced over his shoulder at the door again. _Where is the medic_?

She lifted her head enough to find his eyes, groped for a break between sobs. "I'm pregnant and something is happening-"

"No you're not," he said without thinking. "You're hurt…"

"I can't _feel _her," she whimpered. "I _can't_."

It registered slowly. He took a step back. No, she wasn't. _Her_? He felt as though a neurotstaff had been driven into his gut and twisted from side to side. Time hung suspended. Someone touched his shoulder and he heard a woman's voice.

"General Solo? I'm Chief Medic Tryll. The MD requested I come down. What seems to be the problem?"

"She was hit with a stun blast about three hours ago," Han hurried. Leia must be delusional; this was an internal injury. She would have told him. "She's bleeding-"

"I'm pregnant."

"How many weeks?"

"Almost nine."

Tryll nodded, kept her tone rather reassuring and perfunctory, with the skill of one who was fazed by nothing, and picked up the datapad clipped to her waist. If having one of the New Republics' leaders weeping in her presence surprised her, she didn't let it show. "Any cramping, abdominal pain?"

Leia pressed her knees together with her hands. "It won't stop. It keeps coming..."

_Nine_.

The gut twisting sensation tore through him with fresh veracity. _Nine? _Suddenly he found himself unable to speak at all. A sickening sense of betrayal and anger welling inside forced him another step back.

The medic reached for the scanner beside the table. "First, let's do an ultrasound and check for a heartbeat."

He heard himself say; "I should go. I shouldn't be here for this."

Tryll caught his eye, cast him a warning. "Someone should be with her, General."

His feet refused to obey him anyway and they misinterpreted his stillness for acquiescence. He remained frozen, terrified by the sight of so much blood, still hurling unspoken accusations at her in his mind. He watched as Leia slid off his jacket, and undid her shirt. The medic had her lean back on the table and ran the scanner over her abdomen, studying the viewer on the dolly beside her.

The array of squiggly lines and pulsating ultrasonic images were a foreign language to him, but the shifting expressions on Tryll's face were not. She frowned, caught her patient watching her and smoothed it away. As the scanner traveled she frowned again, but by then Leia was staring at the ceiling. She flipped a few switches and placed the handheld scanner on the tray. "You can sit up now."

"There's no heartbeat." Leia said. "I know."

Tryll rested her hand on Leia's shoulder. She sighed the sigh of years of medical practice, of delivering bad news, of not being able to do what she was trained for. "Miscarriages are a common side-effect of stun blasts. The statistics run at about fifty percent in the first trimester. Nine times out of ten, if you hit a small animal the stun stops its heart cold. A foetus is protected by your body to an extent, but often it's too much for them to absorb. It was simply too early."

Leia ran her hands over her face, through her tangled hair, let out a deep breath.

Han eyed the door again, skipped back to Leia, her legs, and the table. He shunted everything to the furthest recesses of his mind, felt his concern peak.

She fiddled with an injector and pressed it against Leia's neck. Her patient didn't even blink. "I'm admitting her for a more thorough exam and to run some tests. I want her under observation and off her feet for a few days." Tryll opened a stowaway compartment beneath the table and removed a robe for her.

Leia wiped her face on it, peering down at the smudges of dirt in confusion. "Okay."

Tryll spied the mass of healing abrasions on the left side of her back at the same time Han did. "They should have brought you in right away."

The wisp of false hope woke her. Leia's hands flailed in her lap, and then she remembered she was half-undressed and covered herself with the robe. "If I'd come right away-"

"Oh no," the medic exhaled. "It wouldn't have made a difference." A spark of fury appeared in her eyes. "But after being hit with a stun blast…"

"SpecForce was interviewing her," Han cut in.

"Where are they now?" Tryll asked, with a vicious shake of her head.

"Waiting outside."

The chief medic shook her head again, then selected a second injector and quickly administered it, saying, "They should have known better. Now, I'll go get the nurse and give you two a minute alone. General, please make sure she doesn't try to stand. I don't want her on her feet."

He nodded, though being left there with Leia was the last thing he wanted. He felt emotionally unstable, didn't trust himself to be alone with her. He hung back, studying the complicated array of medical equipment he never wanted to face firsthand, thinking _you have to say something_. The knowledge that the blood was evidence of a life and a death held him in check. When he did manage to say something, it sounded mechanical. "I'm sorry, Leia."

She turned away and shook soundlessly.

His self-loathing yawned wider and threatened to swallow him whole. _Who _was the only thing he could think. What kind of idiot was he, rushing off from Kashyyyk to look for her when all along, obviously there'd been nothing left between them but wishful thinking and delusions. He'd been hung up on memories that had meant more to him than to her. She was pregnant with another man's child, _had _been…

"Han, it isn't what you think," she whispered hoarsely, not facing him. "It isn't what you're thinking..."

The plea ignited his temper. "You don't know what I'm thinking," he hissed. "I suppose I should ask you if there's someone back at Home Fleet you want me to contact for you?"

"There isn't."

Images swirled; of her on the Holonet, decked out in silk robes, thick braids coiled and trailing down her back, entering Coruscant's most prestigious eatery on the arm of the Gasconian Ambassador. _Him? Or was it another regal politician_? "What about the Gasconian ambassador? Sure you don't want me to send him a message for you?"

"That wasn't… that wasn't anything," she choked out.

"Then it's not _his_."

"No!"

"Well it sure as hell isn't mine."

There was no reaction.

"And it sure as hell wasn't very long after I left." He began to feel oddly sick at himself. She was having a miscarriage, she looked like she'd overdosed on obliviane, and he was lashing out at her ruthlessly in the examining room.

"Han..." She pressed her hand along the inside of her thigh, drew it away, stared at the blood with the vapid gaze of one who was blind. "Han, are you leaving?"

"For where?"

"You can't leave…" She looked up at him in a daze, and her muddled worries moved from the ongoing loss to the potential tragedy. "I mean, we have to find Luke. I can't stay here. I can't be admitted. I have to go."

Han moved to physically restrain her from climbing down by caging her in on either side. Regardless of her condition, he doubted SpecForce would be permitting her to leave any time soon. "You're not going anywhere." Again, he felt frightened and helpless. "You could bleed to death. You could hemorrhage. Didn't you hear her?"

"But Luke's in trouble," she started. "I have to go to him."

_Doped up_, he decided. That last injection had definitely been some form of sedative. His rational mind took over. Though he'd temporarily forgotten about Luke and the investigation, it all settled over him like a hunter's net. He couldn't abandon her to the mercy of SpecForce, couldn't abandon her while she was utterly defenceless and distraught, nor could he abandon Luke to face the tribunal alone. Whatever he was feeling now, he had to regain control, focus on the situation and not _them_. He hardened his emotions. "Later."

Again, she tried, flailing against him. "Let me up! Luke should never have-"

What if Halla Ettyk was right? What if they'd bugged the entire base? He promptly clamped his hand over her mouth. Until he figured out some way, some place they could talk that he knew was secure, this would have to wait. "Leia, listen to me, listen to me," he ordered.

She panicked; her lips squirmed beneath his palm.

_It's not safe to talk_, he mouthed. _Don't tell me anything_. He enunciated each word for her, mouthed it three times. Then he said, aloud, "You can't worry about Luke now."

Tears filled her eyes again, and her chin sank.

It was gut wrenching. He watched her shoulder blades shaking, studied the half healed wounds, felt her trembling where her forehead rested against him. Going against his impulses, his instincts to comfort her seemed cruel and inhumane. He draped an arm around her involuntarily, let her slump against him and cry. The right words began coming to him. "You worry about you. _We're _worrying about you, okay? I'm right here. You're not gonna be able to help him like this."

When he heard the door click behind them he drew up the gown and set both arms around her to hide her from the inquisitive eyes in the hall.

Tryll was arguing with someone, shouting. "Under New Republic statutes you can not interview a witness under sedation without a writ of interrogation and you _don't _have one. You have no jurisdiction in my ward!"

"If she's not dying then-"

The door slammed so viciously the room shook. Han jumped. Leia didn't notice.  
The nurse arrived through the back entrance a moment later. Together they helped her into a repulsor chair. Han watched as she was shepherded out through the examining room's back entrance.

Tryll re-entered, shaking her head.

"Thank you," he murmured. "I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with them."

"I'll fend them off for a few days. She'll be all right, General, don't worry."

"They'll also probably want to be updated on her condition, and…" He understood why Leia had requested the medic and not the MD, though there was no telling if it mattered. The MD's recorded everything. So did SpecForce. On the off chance they hadn't, he said, "this shouldn't be any of their business."

"Medical records are confidential and encrypted," Tryll reassured him.

"Good."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

"_It was like being dead, a corpse. A big nothing. A whole lot of wide awake nothing._"

Luke Skywalker, for the first time, truly understood Han's vivid descriptions of what it had been like being encased in carbonite.

He didn't breathe.

He wanted to breathe, but his lungs refused to respond, though strangely he wasn't conscious of suffocating. His physical self, his _sense _of his physical self, was gone. He didn't know if his heart was beating. He listened for it, for the reverberations deep within his eardrums. Sometimes if you lay still long enough you could hear it. He couldn't.

There was barely anything beyond the nothing, beyond this place, that was neither life nor death, neither a heaven nor hell. Only the echo of his thoughts, and it was hard to think here, hard to remember he was trapped, that he needed to escape, needed to gather his strength for a chance to break free.

He'd tried desperately to reach for Leia, but even his sense of the Force was paralyzed. Or the Force no longer existed...

_Waiting_...

That's what he was doing.

He couldn't remember how he'd gotten here. He didn't know how long he'd been here for.

_An eternity…a day_…

The most absurd thoughts beckoned. That he'd been wrong all along. That he was in carbonite. That Vader had succeeded? That the past three years were all a dream and he'd been trapped here ever since.

_No_, he reassured himself. He knew Darth Vader had been Anakin Skywalker, and if he was in carbonite he wouldn't know that. He'd lost his hand. A mind couldn't conjure up that sort of physical agony, his body's screaming in that instant a thousand times louder than what he'd released.

He'd let go. He'd been prepared to sacrifice himself. Leia had heard him.

_Leia will come for you_.

If this was sleep than it was a sleep unlike any he'd ever known. He'd never slept and been vaguely aware of time passing, been able to think instead of dream, and if he were dreaming his thoughts wouldn't be coherent. He didn't think he was asleep and if he was he couldn't wake up. The inside of his mind was dark and horrible, a universe of everything and nothing, a prison, a dream, a nightmare. He didn't know.

The last face he remembered was Sarin's. The last feeling had been of his head, a vice-like pressure wrapping itself around his temples. The last sound had been a shout, or a scream.

Someone saying, _you didn't listen to her_.

_No, you didn't_.

It had been his voice.

The last of the light had flickered out, left him enveloped in darkness.

* * *

Leia struggled to find a more comfortable position on her bed in the medical ward's recovery suite, and continued staring out the window. The black glass was muted on the outside so that light inside wouldn't escape, but configured to allow natural light in.

This high on the mountain, the trees down below looked more like toys, not immense giants that tickled the underbelly of the heavy atmosphere. Like clockwork, from this side of the base she could see the X-wings taking off every hour from the main hanger, watched the deceiving lapideous exterior melt away in the blink of an eye, warm and frigid air colliding and forming a natural smokescreen from which enveloped the departing vessels. Major Risken ran a tight base, refused to let SpecForce's presence interrupt the ongoing reconnaissance of the system.

It was ironic. The X-Wings were spying on the Empire and the two guards posted outside her door were blatant reminders that SpecForce was in turn, spying on her. For her own protection, Rieekan had insisted, strictly to back up Han's efforts. At least, that's what she gathered from the vociferous arguments she heard outside her suite. Every time she mentioned Luke's name Han pressed his finger to his lips and twirled his finger in all directions.

That left them little else to talk about, not that it mattered. She hadn't felt like talking for the past few days, and Han cloistered himself away in the L-shaped foyer of the suite where she couldn't see him. The days blurred together into endless hours divided by sleep and dreams.

She dreamed she stood with Sarin in his cabin. He said her aura was broken and black. He told her she was no longer a twin, and when she looked at her arm it was encased in skin-tight leather like her father's arm had been, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't get if off. She woke up screaming into her pillow.

She dreamed she was in labor, that her body was gripped with contractions, only they didn't end when she awoke, continued wringing her insides until she was doubled over and gasping for breath.

They offered her muscle relaxants, pain killers, but she couldn't bring herself to take them. The cramps weren't unbearable, and it was easier to deal with physical pain than to cry and deal with the unfamiliar sense of nothingness within her. It was easier to deal with the physical pain than wonder about Luke. It was easier than wondering how many days it would be before Han disappeared from her life for good, if that was what he wanted to do. Her present had become a blank slate; thinking in terms of the past or present was too agonizing. Three kinds of grief squeezed her chest.

The medical staff had run test after test to be on the safe side. They'd said, the stun blast odds were split, that to be on the safe side they should double check everything. They said they always double-checked everything. You could never be sure when it came to pregnancies.

_We found abnormalities in you bloodstream. You would have lost the fetus regardless within a month. You have traces of Xebonica and Loquasin in your system_.

She wasn't sure she understood much of what Tryll told her after that, save that her autoimmune system had been producing antibodies all along that were beginning to treat the fetus as though it was a foreign invader. Hyper-stimulated after years of breaking down the toxins in her system left over from the narco-interrogation she'd been subjected to five years ago, it was incapable of telling the difference between what it was supposed to be attacking and protecting. Thus she'd been given Trypanid and Alaswal-XT, been too out of it to do much other than sleep and wander in and out of the fresher repeatedly. She turned on the showers and curled on the floor when she needed to cry. She knew the number of floor tiles by heart.

It would have been Vader after all, again.

Luke had been terribly wrong. Han had been terribly wrong. The stun blast might be the official cause of her daughter's death, but it had only harkened the inevitable.

Her one small consolation was that the news had shifted Han's attitude from one of razor sharp indifference to polite sympathy. He _pretended_. Genuine concern was apparently beyond him, as was hating her, anything that hinted at real emotion. He'd only asked her once again if there was anyone she wanted him to contact for her. She'd said no.

Sighing, she drew her knees in tighter against the cramps, heard the sound of someone entering from the guest area, footsteps too heavy to be the medic's. They slid her untouched meal tray aside.

"Leia," he prodded.

It was Han. She cinched the sheet up higher and focused on an abstract point of sky off in the distance, all too conscious of his presence out of the corner of her eye.

A satchel and pair of worn combat boots were thrust at her. "Get dressed."

"What for?"

"We're going for a walk," he told her.

She laughed sardonically. "No we're not."

"You're allowed to move around the base with an escort, you know."

They had repeatedly told her getting out, moving around would do her some good, but she hadn't felt like it. "I don't want to walk around with an escort," she argued. "I'd rather stay in here."

"_Leia_."

His face blotted out the view, and the coercive glint in his eyes made her think twice about refusing. He was up to something. Maybe he'd figured out some way for them to talk, somewhere they could go even with the parade of officers. She opened the satchel and removed a brown silk wraparound blouse and dark pair of trousers, near enough to her size. "Where did you get these?"

"Halla sent them," he explained. "She stopped by to see how you were when you were asleep."

"What did you tell her?" If the suite was bugged they were listening to her conversations with the medic, though she doubted SpecForce was interested in her miscarriage. Still, she didn't want people to _know_.

"That you'd be fine," he sighed. "That you caught a wacky Baskarnian virus. Now get up and get dressed."

The guards outside seemed not at all phased by her emergence, following a few paces behind. It was the middle of the night on the base, and only a skeleton shift remained on duty, so few noticed the parade. After a long series of endless twists and turns, she found herself in a secondary hanger facing the _Millennium_ _Falcon_, just as battered and in need of a paint job as she remembered it. Actually, it was _more _in need of a paint job than ever. Han liked it that way.

They marched straight to the side ramp. Evidently Han seemed to think they would allow them to waltz on board, which made him either daft or out of his mind. He punched a few access codes in a high tech alarm system she'd never seen before, turned back to the guards. "We're going to get some personal belongings for the Councilor."

"Uh… sorry Sir," one of the guards said, waving the butt of his blaster. "You can retrieve anything she needs. She'll have to wait here, off-board."

Han rolled his eyes. "The deflector shields are up, aren't they?"

"Yes, Sir."

"And I can't fly through them?"

"You can't Sir."

Han rolled his eyes again. "Right. And any first year technician knows all this. So could you please explain to me what harm is there in allowing her on board with me? I think she'd like to assemble her personal things herself."

The officer fidgeted anxiously.

"Is the hanger closed for the night?"

"Well ye-"

"Who's gonna know? We only need ten minutes."

Looking to his companion for advice, the young man stammered, "We're under orders to stay with her."

"Look. I know you're just doing your jobs. But, say, how's this?" Han declared amiably. "You give us a few minutes, and I'll take you two on the grand tour afterwards. You've heard about my ship, haven't you?"

Appealing to their youthful awe magically did the trick. "If you make it quick, Sir, It's a deal."

"Oh, we will," Han assured him, grabbing her elbow nudging her forward. "Quicker than you can say I smell Togorian Belladonna." He reached over their heads and slammed his hand down on the ramp controls, gave himself a free ride up, leapt forward into the hatchway after her. Then he reset the locks and sealed them in. "Well I'll be Kesseled," he murmured under his breath. "I didn't know if they were _that _gullible."

There was a loud bang on the hatch, a "_Hey_! General! I didn't say you could close this!"

She gulped back a scathing retort. If SpecForce thought they'd come here to talk she could only imagine how many surveillance systems had been set up around his ship. They would be able to pick up even a whispered conversation. "They're not gullible Han, they're-"

"Hold that thought! I'll be right back." He disappeared into the back hold.

Sighing, she made her way into the galley and slipped into the neo leather lounge seat that curved around the table. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink. One of Han's shirts was draped over the seat. Two empty bottles of expensive Corellian whiskey were tucked surreptitiously behind a full one in the counter's locked down rack. Astronavigational charts of the Sumitra Sector had been tacked to the partition beside the dining area. Han always prided himself on being able to plot his jumps ahead of his Nav-computer, had probably eaten here committing them to memory. He belonged to the old school of thought, where pilots needed to be as efficient at manual astrogation as their Nav-computer, never risk relying on modern technology in emergency. One of the overhead lights had burned out, dimming the center of the galley, leaving a striated section of shadows. Other than that the galley was just as she remembered it, save that she felt like a guest, even though the _Falcon _had once been her home as much as his.

For a few minutes she listened to the sound of him clanging around. Then music crackled through the intercom system so loud it hurt her ears, but just as quickly as it had started it was reduced to a barely audible level, so that she could make out the melody but not the dim familiarity of the words. She thought it was _Laughter after Dark _by Saahir Ru'luv.

He was smirking when he returned. "Think that'll work? The Jammer pack is running too. Between that and the music they won't be able to pick up anything."

"I guess you've got us covered then," she said.

He slid into the booth on the opposite side, leaving a gulf of empty space between them. Suddenly, the go ahead to speak openly was equally oppressive and liberating. It had been safer, _not _being able to talk. "Look, before I ask you anything, I need to say something."

She swallowed nervously. "All right."

"Um…" His features toughened over with practiced determination. "I guess... well, I have something to say. I'm sorry for what happened. I don't know how important this was to you, I can't… even begin to imagine what it must feel like to lose a child."

"It hurts." The whisper got caught in the back of her throat, further down when she saw his Sabaac face turned on her as though she were a so-called friend he thought might double cross him, the same face that favored old acquaintances. Maybe he cared, maybe he felt like he had to say this, she couldn't tell if he meant it. There was no way to explain to him what if felt like to have a part of her die. There was no way to expect him to share it with her. Not this.

His body language stayed perfectly relaxed and unreadable. "I didn't have the right to say any of those things to you either, that day, when you got back. I chose to leave and we didn't make any promises to each other. I shouldn't have expected you to not go on with your life. You did and you didn't owe me anything."

The words sounded overly rehearsed. Groping between the lines made her clutch at the hem of her blouse beneath the table, strangling it.

_We were over. That's that and whatever was between us is finished. We're not going to engage in vulgar accusations_.

That's what he was saying. She wished she could tell him he was wrong, couldn't imagine how awful this was for him, to see her, to know this, to have come all the way here. Obviously he cared enough to race across the sector when he'd heard the shuttle went down, but she didn't doubt his loyalty to Luke was just as strong. All along she'd feared he wouldn't forgive her, that she didn't have it in her to forgive him for leaving in the first place. Even though her brother had told her to be honest with him, it wasn't going to make a difference. "Han-"

"I know you lied to Rieekan and Ley'kel," he stated, bluntly heading off any discussion of _them_. "For the life of me I don't know why and I don't understand why Luke took off and why you won't tell them where the escape pod is. If it would clear this all up why don't you?"

"No," she murmured. "I mean… there are…" She skirted a glance around the galley again. They couldn't hear her could they?

"Keep your voice down and it'll be secure."

"There _are _valid reasons but…" Once she told him there was no turning back. He'd be as guilty as she was of withholding information, going against his vows to the New Republic. "Be sure you want to do this," she advised him. "If you can't commit to helping-"

"Can't commit? Why do you think I brought you _here_?" His lower lip turned down in a cloying curve. "This – isn't about us. It involves Luke too. You don't think-" He studied her face and the curve twisted maliciously. "Oh but you _do_. You're just assuming I'll take off because of you?" Abruptly he stood, made his way over the counter. He snatched an unwashed glass from the sink, rinsed it out, unscrewed the cap from the full bottle of whiskey and filled it to the brim. "That figures."

"Nothing figures," she said. _What if he starts drinking and doesn't stop_? "It's more complicated than you think."

"I _am _aware of the complications," he said harshly. "Actually…actually…." He returned to table and clinked his glass down, then reached deep into his pockets and withdrew a folded piece of flimsiplast. "Why don't you have a look at this?"

"What is it?"

"Read it."

She had to read it three times to believe it. "Who is Harkness?"

"You've never heard of Dirk Harkness, Jai Raventhorn?"

"I…" The names didn't ring a clear bell, but for some reason she was certain she'd run across them in the past. "I'm not sure. Possibly."

"Both have worked for the Alliance off and on. They did time on Zelos together. Raventhorn worked with the Infiltrators, Red Team Five? Harkness is pretty much your regular stand up mercenary type these days."

The names were familiar. She recalled a data-flash on her console, saying that Zelos had been taken by the New Republic. At the bottom of the page had been the casualty list. Intelligence had lost all but one of the Zelos team, a woman.

"This came before I arrived at Kashyyyk. I tried to contact you but you'd already left for Baskarn."

"He knows who we are."

"And so does SpecForce. At least, I think Halla Ettyk was hinting at it when I met with her last week."

It fit with their reactions during the interview. "Halla told you they were listening?"

Han nodded.

That made her optimistic. Airen Cracken had used Halla as a pawn in the Tycho Celchu trial – allowing her to prosecute even thought he'd been fully aware of Celchu's innocence. Only a select few had known about it, and she herself hadn't until after the trial was concluded. Maybe Cracken was using the same ruse again, permitting SpecForce to investigate Luke as a legitimate suspect in order to divert attention from his other investigations. Maybe this time he'd let Halla in on the game and instructed her to inform Han. Either way someone had wanted Luke dead, or they had wanted to set him up and have Intelligence to go after him. There was also the slicer Luke had told her about on the _Razion's Edge_. She informed Han of the second possible source of the leak.

"Well I don't think he managed to keep his secret, whoever he was," Han said.

"But it could have come from Harkness too."

He shook his head. "Last I heard Harkness was doing some illicit undercover work for the New Republic – the sort they probably don't even let the Council on. From the gist of the message I'd say he wanted to warn you and Luke. I know him. He wouldn't have contacted me first if he was going to them."

"And you trust him?"

"As well as I trust anybody."

How many times had she heard that and how many times had they ended dodging blaster fire? She knew better than to remind him.

"Now you've got to tell me what's going on."

"You have to give me your word," she breathed, as quietly as possible. "This goes no further than us."

He nodded. "And so you have it."

Almost an hour later she'd detailed the discovery of the detonators on board, their escape to the surface, the old Imperial station they'd found, and their subsequent journey into the forests. Hesitantly too, she described to him her nightmare, their finding Sarin and what he'd told them about the base, about the dangers there, and Luke's adamant refusal to leave him. She finished by telling him the last thing Luke had said to her was that he couldn't believe she was doing this to him, that he'd stomped off back down the path and she'd been on the verge of going after him when the team arrived. When she was done Han pursed his lips and gave a low whistle. It was difficult to tell what sort of impact it was having on him, and if he was shocked he masked it from her well. Either that or all these years of hanging around Luke had tempered his usual skepticism when it came to the Force, the supernatural and hokey religions. To her relief he was still nursing the same drink at the finish. "You believe me?" she asked.

"There's one thing that adds up," he said, idly tracing a nail over the scar on his chin. "The team I was sent down with… they said the area we were headed into was nicknamed the memory wipe zone - that everyone's equipment failed."

_They may have reported me if they remembered meeting me_.

"He gave them new memories to make up for any missing time," she added. "He would have erased any data."

He didn't look a hundred percent convinced.

"Han, I'm _not _making this up. You think this is what I'd come up with for some sort of cover story?"

"If you are you'd make a fortune writing holo novels," he murmured under his breath.

"_Han_."

"Okay." He resumed his serious stance. "Back to where we were. You don't want SpecForce to know about the station?"

"No. Han we can't. Look at this way. They suspect Luke of being involved. This place was designed to… study the Jedi, I think, study their abilities or their weaknesses. If they get their hands on it, if anyone did…"

Han cupped his hands over his face so she couldn't see his expression, swearing to himself. "Leia, you know you're scheduled to reconvene with SpecForce as soon as you're released, which is now going to be as soon as you walk down that ramp now that you're on a sojourn from the medcenter. Unfortunately for you, and Luke, whatever the hell happened down there makes this whole thing look bad. Coincidence or not."

"Han, it could be catastrophic for Luke, for the future of the Jedi to come, that's how Sarin explained it. I don't know enough to be certain, but I can't take the chance. I need to do some research, see if anything turns up. Then I'll decide if I'll go to Cracken…" An idea struck her. "That _might _work."

"What might work?"

"I'll refuse to say anything until I speak with Cracken in person."

Han frowned. "Leia, he's at least a week away and right now he's out of contact."

"Exactly," she proclaimed. "Their hands will be tied indefinitely. Besides, as it is I'm confined to the base. They can't do much else…"

"Other than throw you in a cell _here _for refusing to cooperate as a material witness," he reminded her.

She tried to shrug off the bleak prospect. "In that case I'll have to leave the research to you."

Han gulped back the last of his whiskey, let out a harsh breath and grimaced as the last of the fiery alcohol slid down his esophagus. "I don't want that to happen to you," he countered. "This isn't worth it."

"Han, you didn't see this place. If you did, you would understand. You're not Force-sensitive but _believe _me, you would be able to feel it."

The grimace was unwavering.

"I can give you the location," she whispered. "If they charge me you could go see…"

"I'll end up leading them straight to it," he said. "What do you think they think you're telling me right now? They'll think I'm headed off to the escape pod."

_Stupid Leia_, she thought. He was right. "Oh."

He shook his head, muttering to himself. "I must be crazy. I really must be. I thought I'd seen and heard every sort of mumbo jumbo from Luke by now…" He kept shaking his head

It was encouraging nonetheless. "You're going to help me?"

He met her eyes. "If for no better reason than I can't stand the way they've been running the show here, yes."

"You don't have to make it sound like I'm the lesser of two evils," she retorted. "I know you're not fond of SpecForce's' totalitarian methods – right now I'm not either – but they get the job done. We would have crumbled in the past year without them."

"Omnipotence and self-righteousness are a dangerous combination. Rieekan's got both and I don't trust _him_."

"You're letting your personal feelings get in the way."

The muscle of his right cheek ticked. "Funny… he said the same thing when I told him these charges against Luke were bogus, which I seem to recall you saying as well."

"I know," she assented, freshly curious for what had passed between the two men in order for such mutual dislike to have developed. "But it won't help to antagonize him. If we do he'll charge me out of spite." It seemed like years ago that the cancelled mission had been important to her, that she'd rehearsed her speeches and declarations of amnesty to the political prisoners they'd hoped to liberate – all in the name of the New Republic. Now the current situation rendered her incapable of participating even if it went ahead.

"Speaking of your brother…" He ran his fingers through his hair, briefly disrupting the stubborn part that formed naturally off center, before it settled back into place. "Can you feel him at all? I mean... you two can contact each other can't you? Have you been try-"

"I've _been _trying. Every day."

"How do you he's out there?"

"I just do. It feels like…" She fumbled for a way to describe it. "Like walking into a pitch black room after hearing a voice and not being able to find whoever called to you. I know he's out _there…_"

"Sarin absolutely didn't want you to go after Luke if he turned back."

"No." She stared at his hands, on his knuckles, his fingers, longing to thrust take them into her own, solicit the smallest comfort from him. "I don't understand what was out there but I should have gone after him. I know I promised Sarin I wouldn't but I should have."

_I'm not going to cry, I'm not_, she promised herself. Luke had been so happy, and when he came back she was going to have to tell him…

His tone melted slightly. "Did ah…Luke know that you were pregnant?"

Her field of vision blurred. She fought the tears, blinked rapidly until her eyes dried. "I wanted to tell you first. I really… I had no idea Luke would take this mission with me, and after we crashed…" _Take a deep breath Leia_. "It was sort of hard to hide from him," she finished plaintively.

Han was silent for a moment, watched her try to regain her composure. "Well, you can stay here if you like tonight," he intercepted casually, standing and adding the glass to the pile in the sink. "That's my suggestion for the moment. That way in the morning we can do some last minute planning. Tomorrow, if you're _not _arrested, we'll find you quarters and find you a console and do some research."

It was a strictly pragmatic offer, a kindness that belayed no weakness save practicality, and seeing little choice than to return to her room in the medcenter, she accepted. "Okay."

He motioned for her to follow, and though she expected him to put her in the crew quarters or Chewie's berth behind the lounge, they ended up in his own. On her way into his cabin she caught a glimpse of herself in the dingy mirror just past the hatch, and stopped. She hadn't seen herself, what others saw when they looked at her since they'd returned. There had been no mirror in the recovery ward. What she saw now shocked her. Besides being paler and thinner than she remembered, her eyes seemed unnaturally large and dark looking back at her. She couldn't help thinking that whoever this person was, it couldn't really _be _her. She looked pitiful.

Reflected in the mirror behind her was the cocooned bunk she had shared with Han for the past two years. She watched him clear off clothes and extra pillows. Han had always complained it wasn't meant for two people. Replacing it had been on his list of things to do, but he never got around to doing it.

This is so much more fun, he told her once when she finally tired of his endless complaints and asked him why he didn't go ahead. _If I get a new one you'll just end up way on the other side and get used to sleeping without me plastered up against you. We don't want that to happen, do we_? She'd thought it was sweet and romantic for him to admit he liked holding her. He so rarely let down the masculine bravado that attracted women to him like insects to the saccharine nectar of the blackfruit plant, that had attracted her, made her feel that she was in over her head, bereft of control.

She didn't want to climb into it alone, didn't want to lie down on his bed. "Is this where I'm staying?" she asked the girl in the mirror. "These are your quarters."

"The other fresher's a disaster," he explained. "It's been Chewie's domain. I really need a good night's sleep and if you're going to be in and out of it…" He looked her reflection up and down knowingly. "Tryll said a few more days, right?"

"I didn't bring anything with me from the medcenter," she murmured.

Han opened his closet. "Whatever was in here - well, before I left - is still here. In the back. Any personal items you might have left in the fresher are still there too, if they'll do?"

"Yes…" She tried to remember what she'd left here. Clothes, toiletries… Somehow she'd imagined all her belonging swept out an airlock, floating in space. She looked down at her feet and focused on the tight weave carpet, trying to keep the woven strands from morphing into a blob of green swirls. "I haven't had a chance to thank you for coming. It means a lot to me. It will to Luke."

Han crossed to the hatchway, paused with one hand on the frame. "You would have done the same if it were me. So would he." He tapped the comm unit beside the entrance. "You just hit this if you need anything."

His emotional apathy kindled a flame of fury deep within her soul, gave her a perverse sense of conviction. "You were right," she called after him.

"About what?"

"You had no right to say anything you did."

He didn't turn around. All he did was say, "No, no I didn't." Then he walked away.

She washed up in the fresher and then wandered over the bunk and lay down fully clothed, not even bothering to remove her boots. She dragged the thin coverlet up to her chin. Beneath the façade of loner and mercenary they had turned out to be more alike than she ever would have predicted. Neither forgave or forgot easily. She might grieve her unborn daughter, her brother if it came to that, but wasn't going to give Han the satisfaction of knowing she'd been grieving him for so long she couldn't remember what life had been like before the mourning began.

Instead she thought, _you bastard_.

* * *

The shrill ringing echoing throughout the ship wasn't the only disturbance that harkened the end of the sleep cycle.

Leia stared overhead at the roof of the bunk. It could possibly be morning, afternoon, or still the middle of the night on Baskarn. There was no way to tell without sunlight, and the timed lights in the cabin hadn't switched on.

_Luke_...

The terrifying absence, phantom-like separation was gone, throbbing anew, not with blood but with feeling, not complete, not entirely whole, but nearer to it. She cradled it, touched it and held it close until she was certain it wasn't going to go away.

The ringing didn't cease either, though it took her a moment to identify the sounds of comlinks going, followed by footsteps pounding, Han's voice: "They did? They what? No? No? No? Are you sure? No? I will. I understand."

She scrambled from the bunk and into the hall only to collide with Han. "What?" she gasped, breathlessly. "It's Luke, isn't it?"

Han steadied her, reached up, rubbed his bleary eyes and shook his head. "He turned himself in."

She _knew _it. She'd felt him minutes ago. "We'll get ready to meet-"

"We can't." He stretched his arms from side to side and blocked her way. "I'm to deliver you straight to the audience chamber. In case I get lost, our pals are waiting outside the _Falcon _to steer us in the right direction."

"_Now_?"

"Yes, _now _and don't look at me like it's _my _fault, I'm not calling the shots. They are, remember. I'm going to wash up and change." He looked her over critically. "Did you… sleep in your clothes?"

"Uh…" Embarrassed, she smoothed her hands over the wrinkles and creases of the blouse. Silk didn't hold up very well after hours of tossing and turning. "How long do we have to get ready?"

A short while later she'd showered and packed a few belongings. There hadn't been much on board after all; a few tunics, old fatigues, one or two articles of formal wear. For long flights she tended to wear the most comfortable clothing possible and that was what she'd left lying about. She tied back her wet hair and waited for Han in the galley on tenterhooks, forced herself to swallow a few mouthfuls of dry rations, thoughts racing. Trepidation filled her body with ice and jumbled concerns.

_Luke will be able to prove his innocence. He'll find some way to convince them, and then we'll decide what to do about the Korriban Station, and then... He'll know I lost her the minute I see him_…

She tried not to think about _that_.

When Han reappeared he'd shaved and was wearing fresh clothes as well.

"We're going to be late," she advised him.

Instead of responding he pressed an old punch-dagger into her hand, then held out a Telltrig-7. "This blaster is modified," he instructed her, demonstrating as he went. "If you switch it to just past what's normally your highest setting, it'll function as a disruptor."

She took it from his hand and switched it back to down to stun. Disruptors were notorious for reducing their targets – and everything within ten feet - to scattered molecular matter. "Aren't these things illegal?" It was more of a rhetorical question.

"_Only_," he clarified mischievously, "if you switch it over. If you don't switch it over you're not breaking any laws."

She shook her head. "What are you even doing with one of these?"

"Haven't you ever heard of Outlaw tech? For a small fee they'll modify anything you've got... Aw... Come on, I'm kidding! It's a souvenir, courtesy of the man who aimed it at me to begin with and it's the only thing I have that's small enough for you to carry beneath your clothes."

A smile tweaked the corner of her mouth. She didn't think he was kidding but he'd had quite a few nasty weapons turned on him. "In that case you must have quite a collection," she teased.

"Sure," he mumbled. No trace of amusement surfaced. "Put those away where no one can see them."

Leia sighed. It had slipped out awkwardly; the tension between them left no room for bantering, none of the flirtatious sarcasm that had been verbal foreplay. She tucked the blaster behind her back in the waist of her fatigues and hid the punch-dagger inside her boot. There were too many armed personnel within the base for scanners to be used, and she doubted SpecForce was viewing her as a threat to security. But it wouldn't hurt for her to carry just in case.

Next he spent fifteen minutes making her memorize the access codes for the _Falcon_, needed to exit the ship, as well as enter. His comm beeped and interrupted them the tenth time she was reciting the codes.

"Solo here."

"We're waiting in Section 12, the audience chamber."

"On our way." He straightened his collar. "Let's go." 

* * *

Han felt it before they entered.

The mood in the audience chamber was chaotic and disorganized. Major Risken was there, looking grim and haggard, shaking his head and slamming his fist against his thigh. One of his aides, a woman of thirty or so was weeping and speaking into her comlink. Ley'kel was wide-eyed and dazed, his olive skin taut as steel.

Baskarn's commander was shouting angrily. "They could have left him down there to die… you should have!"

"Do we have a casualty list?" Rieekan asked.

"Sixteen," he spat, "and most of them were _my _staff."

The Admiral shook his graying head, with genuine regret. "We didn't know Major. We didn't know he might do something like that."

They might have been invisible, standing at the back of the room, blocked from exiting by the menagerie of guards outside the doorway. The Admiral looked as though he'd aged twenty years since they'd seen him last. It took Han a moment to catch on: after the medtech's death and his departure, the team total had been eighteen.

"What's his condition?" Ley'kel asked.

"They said he's critical but stable." Rieekan replied.

"Oh my gods," Leia whispered. "I didn't feel that Han."

He was busy picturing Raniss and Batille, the sensor analyst, the younger team members whose names he hadn't had time to learn, the kid from Kuat who knew so many filthy jokes Batille had threatened to glue his mouth shut that last night...

Risken kept shouting. "He attacked them unprovoked…"

"Major…" Rieekan held up his hands. "This isn't the time or the place for theatrics or revenge. I can assure you he'll be held accountable for his actions-"

"You're mistaken," Leia burst out.

All eyes turned toward the back. "Your Highness?"

"My brother would never have attacked unprovoked," she insisted, marching forward to the group.

Han followed with bated breath. All he could think was that most of the men on those teams were not part of SpecForce. They wouldn't have attacked him or fired at him. Their only instructions were to bring him in unharmed.

The Major, red faced, veins throbbing in his temple, turned on her. "_Your brother_," he bellowed, "should have been left down there to rot."

Leia paled, gasped, took a step back. "He wouldn't have killed anyone unless he had no choice."

"Tell that to the wives and children I'm on my way to notify," Risken hissed, advancing on her. "Tell that to their families. I don't know what the hell Rieekan's men were planning but mine were there to assist in locating him, not fire on sight! They wouldn't have gone near him!"

Leia took another step back. "He wouldn't have…"

"Your Highness, he did," Rieekan said coldly. "My men were under orders to bring him in unharmed, subdue him if necessary, but not harm him." He strode around the desk and pointed a finger at her chest. "Perhaps you'd like to be present when the first of the transports arrive with the bodies. You know what a lightsaber can do."

She shook her head. "I don't believe this. It's not his way, not in his nature. He wouldn't have…"

Risken growled and moved forward again, arms swinging wide. Rieekan intercepted. "Major. You and your aides should get to the hanger. I'll deal with her. General Ley'kel, please go with him."

When the trio had left Rieekan withdrew a comlink from his pocket. "Why don't you listen to this, both of you?" He held the comlink close to his ear, fiddled with the controls and turned up the volume.

Han was grateful he hadn't eaten yet; tentacles of disgust climbed up his throat, then sank like stones to the pit of his stomach. There weren't many sounds that by themselves could elicit such a primal reaction, few sounds he hadn't heard in his life, in battle, in war, but he was familiar with death, with the pleas men made when it faced them. Batille was shouting over and over for command to send backup. Blaster fire thundered. He tried to block out the other sounds in the background, tried only to hear the fire, felt his heart sucked down into a vortex of spiraling anger, set his hand over his own blaster.

Rieekan switched it off. "It took him less than twenty seconds. Two men from the third team survived. The initial reports were that Skywalker surrendered to them peacefully. Apparently had a rather violent change of heart. They managed to hit him with the sleep inducers and fired at him in self-defense. Most of their fire ricocheted, was deflected back. Those who weren't hit by it… " He drew his fingers across his cheek. "I don't think I need to elaborate."

Leia looked faint. "How can you be sure? You weren't there."

There was a long pause. "I sympathize with Major Risken. Your brother _is _in desperate need of medical attention. The attending staff said there's no guarantee he'll survive his injuries."

It was a feint, a bluff, cruel enough to elicit a small whimper and a quivering response. "You can't do that."

Rieekan crossed his arms and let the heavy threat hang interminably. "No, no I can't. He'll be charged with murder and returned to Coruscant pending his trial as soon as he's able." He looked at Han shrewdly. "General Solo if she's told you anything this would be a good time to come forward. I want the location of the escape pod."

"I don't know it," Leia replied.

"General Solo?"

Raniss had been on his team, the _first _team, not the third. Batille was with SpecForce but he'd been all right; Han had even warmed up to him. There had to be some mistake. Luke wouldn't have done it, would never have killed anyone in cold blood. Luke would have tried desperately to defend himself without killing them but what he'd just heard…

"General Solo?" Rieekan was waiting, eyes narrow slits.

"She didn't tell me," he said truthfully. Leia, fortuitously, had not given him the coordinates, and somehow he doubted Rieekan would believe what she _had _told him. He wasn't sure he believed it. He wasn't sure he believed any of this.

"I want to see my brother when he's brought in," Leia cried. "If he's injured-"

"Don't worry, Your Highness. We are not the Empire here. I have every intention of making certain he survives and stands trial. As for you…" Rieekan clasped his hands behind his back and stood at attention. "Effective immediately, we're stripping you of your title as a Provisional Councilor for failure to cooperate as a material witness."

"_What_?"

"It's within my discretion to do so under New Republic statute 1-774." Rieekan clipped. "Councilor N'dan gave her evaluation of the proceedings, found your forthrightness to be lacking, and that's being generous on her part. Coruscant has already been notified. Any immunity granted you by your position in the government is henceforth nullified. We're here under orders from Airen Cracken. Your oath to the New Republic includes cooperating with us, whether you want to or not. You have only yourself to blame for the consequences."

Leia went rigid, flushing with indignation. Rieekan's actions stripped her not only of her position, but of any right to insist on speaking to Cracken personally. "Spare me the didacticism. I know the New Republic charter as well as you do. Admiral you can't-"

"I have and though I could spend all morning wasting my time with you, I have more pressing concerns."

"I demand to see my brother when he's brought in."

"I can't allow that."

"Why not?"

"He'll be sequestered for the safety of the base, for your safety as well."

"He's no threat to me. He's no threat to anyone!"

"I wouldn't be so sure of that."

Leia lost her temper and lurched forward. Han caught her around the torso. It was bad enough that she might be charged with sedition. She didn't need to have assault added. "Leia calm down. This isn't going to solve anything now."

"Han _they can't_-"

"Right now they _can_. Right now…" He glanced at the Admiral, over his shoulder at the guards. "Is she being charged with anything?"

"We don't feel confinement will convince her to talk," Rieekan admitted. "Nor do we feel she'll be in a hurry to leave Baskarn considering her history with Skywalker. Of course, we'll provide you with larger quarters General, so you can continue your… protection, and we'll make sure you have adequate assistance. I'd hate for Admiral Madine to think we're not respecting his orders, however much I view them as non-essential and more of a personal favor to you. There's absolutely no need to cloister her away on your ship. Let me make that clear. You may not be able to force your way through the containment fields, but there should be no need to divert incoming traffic for you." He flicked his hand at the guards. "Please escort these two to the quarters we have set aside for them."

"No," Leia pleaded, panic rising. "What if he dies?"

Han tightened his arms around her. "He's not going to let him die." He wouldn't. If Rieekan was going by the book – and he was from outward appearances – he would keep Luke guarded. "You'll update us on his status as soon as you hear?"

To his relief, he agreed.

Their new accommodations, when they reached them, were adequate enough. Two green repulsor chairs rested beside an imitation pleekwood caf table, adorned with fake vors glass vases. The repulsor chairs were joined by a matching repulsor lounge. A small kitchen was partitioned off to the side; one bedroom beside it, equipped with a tiny office area and a console unit. Across the main room was a second bedroom. Leia collapsed into the chair nearest the window. He settled into her chair's twin. "I can't believe they'd stoop so low Han. Oooh," she groaned angrily, pounding a fist against the cushioned seat. "I'm so angry and I can't even do anything. And he didn't do it! You know he didn't do it!"

Han didn't answer. He knew what he'd heard. This hadn't been staged by SpecForce. This was _not _an elaborate ruse to convince her to talk. Risken's aide had not been acting. Risken had not been acting. This was all real and surreal.

"Why aren't you saying anything? You know he didn't do it, don't you?"

"Leia… I…" He flung his hands up in the air. "I don't know what to think."

"But you're thinking something!"

"Sure. That maybe I should go down to the hanger and see for myself."

"Go if you need to!"

"No…" He really had no desire to view the carnage; his imagination provided it, but he needed to clear his head away from her. "Nothing. I won't."

She twisted her braid around her hand, stood up, marched behind the lounge and started pacing back and forth. "It's a mistake. It's my fault that this happened. If I'd tried harder to make him come with me…"

Determined not to go through all thatagain he snapped. Over and over for the past week when they spoke he'd had to deal with her blaming herself for everything; _if only _she'd gone to the medcenter right away, _if only _she'd gone after Luke in the first place. It didn't matter that he knew what Tryll had told her. It didn't matter that Luke was a grown man and would do what he wanted. "Stop acting like some kind of martyr. You've never controlled your brother! If he…" He had to say it. "Leia if he did this, if what they're saying is true-"

"_He didn't_."

Was she deaf? Was she so strung out from the loss of early pregnancy that her brain refused to process what they had heard in the audience chamber? He knew what he had heard. The machinery of _what ifs _ground to a halt; it poisoned his thoughts while he struggled with another galling and inexorable possibility. "I almost stayed with the team," he snapped. "If that shot they took at you – whether it was an accident or not and now we'll probably never know – if it hadn't have happened I would have stayed with them. I would have let you go back alone and I would have gone after him."

She licked her lips, shook her head. "Han… he wouldn't have…"

"How sure are you? Cause… Cause... Leia right now I'm counting my blessings that I didn't. Your brother is always going on about the Dark side and the Light side." He threw caution to the wind, not caring what they overheard. "Is this what Sarin was afraid of? What if whatever was out there turned him into some kind of monster?"

"He's not a monster!"

"He's something and it's not Luke."

"I know my brother. I want to see him Han. I _need _to make sure he's okay."

"He'll have an entire unit assigned to him. You want me to lead you to him with a thermal detonator in one hand, threatening to blow us both up if they say no?"

"Well you've pulled off crazier stunts in the past," she breathed.

"I am not _that _crazy and neither are you. If I were you I'd start thinking about who he's going to come for first when he wakes up."

"He would never hurt me!"

"_Leia, were you listening to that recording?"_

"You don't have to shout at me!"

He buried his head in his hands. What if Luke was on his way to becoming the next Vader? Images of Vader, casually watching while they lowered him onto the scan grid over and over flooded back, caused his entire body to shudder. He looked up, saw that Leia had disappeared, though he hadn't heard her leave, hadn't heard any doors open. He stood and walked over to the lounge, peered in either bedroom, knelt on the cushions and peered over it. She crouched on the narrow floor space between the furniture and the window. "Leia?"

"I had to sit down," she whispered. "I don't feel well."

He felt bad for yelling at her, said more quietly, "Leia, I know what I heard."

"I heard it too." Liquid brown eyes met his. "But he couldn't have done it. Han… I wouldn't have made it here without him. Not through the jungles and the swamps. He did everything he could to get me here safely, took care of me when I was sick and tired all the time. He was so excited about …_her…_"

"I'm sure he was," he managed gruffly. It was a slap in the face. He hadn't thought about how Luke must have reacted to the news that he was going to be an uncle; Luke would have been bouncing off the walls, wouldn't have cared how it happened, would have viewed the future through the starry eyes of an opportunist, dazzled by the infinite glow of the future handed to him on a sliver platter. "But he wasn't supposed to turn back and he did. You told me that. And something must have happened to him, changed him…"

"Like what? I thought… he said… Sarin said I _knew _what would happen but I don't. I didn't. I thought… I thought it might kill him not... "

"Turn him into your-"

"_Please _don't say it." The words were a prayer not a plea. "If something's wrong with him I can reach him when I see him. I _know _I can Han. And if he's done anything at all for which he's to be blamed there'll be a good explanation."

They couldn't keep this up, not until he calmed down. Butting heads against her unwavering faith in her brother while he pictured Raniss and Batille and everyone else made him want to keep shouting. No explanation was going to suffice or be good enough for him. Nothing justified murder. His stomach growled, with sick dread and hunger. He would worry about what Luke might do next later, hopefully come up with a plan before he returned to consciousness. "I'm going to order from the cafeteria and have them deliver it here," he told her.

"I can't eat," she sighed, shaking her head.

"Yeah well, you're gonna," he said, getting up and striding to the localized comm system beside the door. He'd spent so many days staring at the sterile walls of the medcenter the undersides of his eyelids were stark white and he wasn't going back. He scrolled through the base directory, hit the direct key to the cafeteria, and waited for the automated reply. "Two of whatever the special is today to Suite 6B, Level III."

"You're order will be there in seven minutes and thirty six seconds," the voice told him, sounding like Threepio at his most officious. By the sounds of it, he had relatives here. He rolled up his sleeve and checked his chrono. Luke's transport would be arriving about now, but it was too early to check on his condition. She still hid on the other side of the lounge. "I mean it Leia," he called to her. "They're not going to wave you in to see him if you wage a hunger strike."

"Does this mean you're going?"

"No," he told her, though he'd thought about little else over the last week. "I'm your Chief of Security." _A glorified bodyguard, your ex-lover who foolishly thought you actually needed me here_. He squeezed his mind shut against visions of her naked, lying in bed with another man, squirming beneath him and moaning, making all those little sounds he'd thought no one else would ever know she made, touching her… Whatever appetite he'd had vanished.

"Because the New Republic doesn't pay for civilian security," she said. "Rieekan may have forgotten but he'll remember and try to get rid of you."

_In her bed? In their bed_? He squeezed harder. "I'm out of their jurisdiction. He can't go against Madine's orders. You heard him."

"But he might _try_. It'll make it easy for you to go."

"Leia… none of this easy," he muttered. "Now pull yourself together and get off the floor."

She didn't budge. Her voice grew desperate. "Han?"

"I said I'm not going anywhere. There's not much else I can do."

"Not that… It's just that… The New Republic isn't going to want this made public. They can't put _Luke Skywalker _on trial… now with how it will make the government look. Rieekan might not have his orders yet but I know what they're going to be."

"They're not going to let him die," he assured her, even though he saw the logic in what she was saying. It would be better if he simply disappeared, if there was an accident, if restitution bought the silence of the families who'd lost loved ones. Murky dealings and decisions like this kept the government afloat, all touted under their being in the _best interest _of the New Republic. She could be right. _Or very wrong_, he thought a moment later. "They won't," he continued. "They know who you are now."

"Maybe," she conceded after a long silence, finally climbing to her feet. "I hope so. I really do."

"And Halla Ettyk is here," he added. Halla hugged the contours along the path of the straight and narrow sect. "She won't buy the 'oh, his bacta tank malfunctioned and we lost him' sort of garbage."

She rubbed her palms on her sleeves. "Don't give them any ideas."

"I don't have to. They do this for a living."

Her chin dropped to her chest, and she kept rubbing at her sleeves.

He suddenly couldn't stand watching her; her features were distorted by grief, further distorted by his own multi-layered grief. She was unfamiliar to him. Together, _they _were unfamiliar to him, resembled nothing he remembered. She was still Leia, lost in dark colors, a subliminal sign of her bereavement though he doubted she'd chosen her clothes realizing it, but she wasn't his and she barely seemed to possess herself. He pretended it wasn't a question and didn't answer, wandered into the kitchen and opened the cupboards. There were stacks of monochromatic silver plates and glasses, cutlery, everything they needed. He laid out a few items on the countertop, checked the fridge, found it had been pre-stocked with beverages and fresh food. "What do you want to drink?"

Predictably came an, "I don't care."


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

* * *

True to his word, Admiral Rieekan forbade Leia from going with a hundred meters of where they were holding her brother.

In an effort to distract herself she focused on her research. The console in her bedroom was linked to the base's mainframe system, enabling her to use the DataSearch service, sift through thousands and thousands of DSU's of data in the time it took to prepare a cup of stimcaf. Today, she'd run several dozen searches and drank so much stimcaf she could no longer tell if her jitters were chemically induced or the usual blanket wrapped tension that left her back in knots and head pounding. Either way, the words on the screen were beginning to blur together.

The name Korriban had turned up only scarce entries on the planet itself. That she had expected but she'd felt compelled to try on the off chance a search would have yielded any information. Naturally if the Emperor had been here, had christened a station with the same name it was not going to be in any public records.

There was nothing on Baskarn she hadn't read on the _Razion's Edge _before they arrived.

The planet Yashuvhu was another story. Yashuvhu was an isolated world, with a population near one million, listed as human. Records of the planet's discovery by the _Pathfinder III _eighty years ago described a society steeped in tradition and culture who openly embraced offworlders. Since then, anthropologists, linguists and exobiologists had actively studied the planet; there were thousands of journals published. There were semi historic accounts of a team of Jedi crashing on the planet during the Expansion periods, per her brother's claim, but the tales were so woven with fictional details, so overly romanticized, that they could hardly be relied upon. Two days of wading through articles on everything from native crops to insects, syntax to religious practices, had turned up nothing relevant.

There were a few noteworthy facts that piqued her interest. After being discovered by the _Pathfinder III_, Yashuvhu had not entered the Galactic Trade Federation, preferring to remain self-sufficient and rely on its own resources. One could interpret their decision any number of ways. Either they were either isolationists, and wary of the Empire, or they had been forewarned that they had a long way to go before they met the statutory .01 percent off the Federation's market. They would have been exempt from the heavy taxes Palpatine regime imposed collectively, but _not _paying taxes would have also precluded them from official representation in the Galactic Senate. Economically they would have suffered in the interim.

They had sent an honorary Ambassador to Coruscant, but he'd been there as part of a cultural exchange and no more than a token representative.

The name 'Sarin' cross referenced with 'Yashuvhu' yielded nothing. Either all records of his existence had been erased or he'd simply been too inconsequential a figure on Yashuvhu to garner mention. That was if he'd even given them his real name.

Leia did have some luck. Cross referencing Jedi with Yashuvhu had turned up three articles on the disproportionate number of Force sensitive individuals in relation to its population. The old Jedi Council had detailed statistics claiming that a sentient being had a one in one hundred thousand chance of being born with sensitivity. It was a fact she vaguely remembered hearing when she was growing up. Yashuvhu produced one per ten thousand. There were no records telling her how many natives had gone to Coruscant to study formally with the Council. Palpatine had been thorough in destroying the council's archives during the purges.

This afternoon, on a whim, she tapped into the Imperial Newsgrid archive and cross referenced Palpatine with Yashuvhu. The results were surprising. Palpatine, while still a Senator from Naboo, had visited Yashuvhu twice. After being elected Emperor, he has visited again. There were even holo images; Emperor Palpatine surrounded by his aides, Palpatine descending the ramp of his flagship and being warmly welcomed by droves of admiring natives, Palpatine, shaking hands with the reigning '_Tas_' which she assumed was the Yashuvhi equivalent of leader or king, Palpatine receiving Yashuvhu's elite in the midst of all the pomp and circumstance that would have befit his visit. Children wearing white lined the procession way, holding flowers and fruit.

She rubbed her neck and sighed. Of course they'd welcomed him with open arms, even Alderaan had initially. The Old Republic had grown stagnant, been in desperate need of new and effective leadership, needed to be cleansed of the lumbering bureaucratic administration. Bringing exigent attention to Sector crises, attacks from neighboring worlds, pirates disrupting the flow of trade, famines, civil wars that sought impartial intervention, took months if not years. When her father had first been Senator, one poor representative had gone to Coruscant to petition for medical aide from the Republic, spent thirteen months lobbying for support and a chance to speak. It had been too late when they approved his request. Two thirds of his world's population had succumbed to an outbreak that could have easily been treated by antibiotics mass produced on Merissee Prime Pharmaceuticals.

Palpatine had promised to change all that, promised that the new Empire would not be a multi tiered system where wealth equaled voice, where humans and aliens would share equal status, where even the tiniest populace would have fair representation.

It had all been a lie.

Too depressed to plough through the information on screen, she tabbed the console to print them off. There was one other item she'd wanted to check, though she wasn't sure if Baskarn's media catalogues had been updated recently. "Okay Luke," she murmured to herself. "Let's see if Rieekan's smear campaign has made it back to the core."

"The latest newgrids from the Core won't arrive for a few days," Han's voice replied. "If Luke's made the headlines we won't know yet."

She jumped, turning partway in her chair. "Do you mind?"

"Sorry. I thought you were talking to me?"

"I _wasn't_." Han was leaning back against the doorframe with the habitual expression of boredom he'd been wearing of late. There'd been nothing for him to do for the past few days but repeatedly pester Rieekan for an update on Luke's condition and watch endless holovids on the main room's entertainment unit. He was literally beginning to climb the walls. "Any word?" she asked, though she knew he would say no. No comlinks had gone off.

"Not yet."

Her brother had been in and out of the bacta tank for the last four days recovering from injuries to his left side and leg from blaster fire. He'd also sustained a severe concussion. Per their official updates, he had not awoken between sessions in the tank, though the medics had assured them there was no neural damage. It was very likely they'd been keeping him sedated. Despite her best efforts she'd been unable to crack the medcenter's encryption codes to verify his status. "They're still planning on shipping him back to Coruscant as soon as they can?"

"Last I heard."

_And me with him_, she thought. So much for her mission, so much for everything she had come to Baskarn hoping to accomplish. Once back at Home Fleet, she hoped Mon Mothma would summarily dismiss all claims that she was not cooperating, as would Cracken and Madine. Trouble was, she needed to be there in person; left to SpecForce's accounts of her behavior, they had little choice but allow Rieekan's decision to stand temporarily. She was stuck following SpecForce's orders and Han was stuck guarding her. As for the charges against Luke…

She'd been telling herself over and over that there had to be some reason, that he didn't do it, not the way they said.

Han kept leaning against the doorframe as though he were waiting for her to say more. If they were in the same room together she felt like she had to say something, and they wound up having the same conversations over and over for the sake of speaking out loud. His physical presence dominated their shared space. So much so, in fact, that she had always known if he was in a room before she entered or if he entered after her without turning around to make certain. It had always been that way, back in the early days even, that tingling sense of his proximity to her. Back then she'd assumed it was yet one more way he unconsciously managed to irritate her. Now it was suffocating. She didn't think she could stand it much longer and fumbled for anything to say. "Have you asked if they would let either of us see him again?"

"Hmmm…" Han pretended to think it over. "Four days ago they said _no way_. Three days ago they said _no way_. Two day ago they said _no way_… "

"Point made," she cut in. "Um…Did you find any good holodramas?"

"I don't need to watch the holovids if I want drama," Han grumbled. "I just turn the blasted thing off and reminisce about my week."

"Oh."

"Besides, you'd think they'd have a few action holos around in a place like this."

She squelched her smile. "You don't need drama but you need action?"

"Or a comedy," he added. "A comedy would be all right." He shrugged and wandered over to the bed, perched on the edge. "Anything but _Varn, World of Water_."

"Varn, World of Water?"

"Don't ask."

A scintilla of hope began shining in the rough. Maybe Han was wearying of their ongoing game too or merely tired of his own company. She tried again. "You haven't told me how it went in the Sumitra Sector?"

"What's to tell about transporting goods from here to there; another flight, another delivery, another bunch of pilots harassing me into playing Horansi."

_Nothing_, she thought miserably.

Han unexpectedly grinned to himself and kept going. "We got a crack in the titanium-chromium shell of my hyperdrive and were grounded in some space port that made Mos Eisley look like a vacation resort. Not too long though. I got a good deal on a replacement. And Chewie's son, Lumpawarrump, is now big enough and strong enough to pick me up, which is apparently the family in-joke now and had the rest of the furry monsters in hysterics."

This time she didn't hold back her smile, felt her unused cheek muscles respond, and heard herself laugh for the first time in weeks.

"Yeah," he murmured. "Something told me you'd find that amusing. At least you don't growl too."

"Chewie's on Kashyyyk then?"

"I took off in a hurry, didn't want to ruin his vacation by dragging him here with me."

"I guess not."

He smoothed his hand over the comforter, followed the floral pattern with one finger. "And yourself?"

"Me?"

"Business as usual at the Fleet, this mess not withstanding?"

"It's been hectic, probably worse than you remember it." She watched his finger gliding back and forth across the center of the bed. "I've managed to keep my head above water though. Winter's been a great help."

"It can't be worse than I remember it," he guffawed lightly. "_That's _impossible. What about your project?"

"Which one?"

"The search for a home for the Alderaanian refugees? I thought you were going to present the subsidiary request to the New Republic for funds once you'd found enough investors to toss their credits in..."

"We had to shelve the project," she admitted.

"Not enough backers?"

"No, we found enough backers."

"Really?" His finger stopped tracing. "The Taskeens - Tyr and his brother?" He glanced at her inquisitively. "What was his name?"

Her mouth suddenly felt as though a wad of cotton had been stuffed inside. "Yail."

"Yeah, him."

"Yail agreed to put in fifty million if the New Republic would match it," she said quickly, struggling to stay composed. "But with all the losses our fleet has taken its low on their list of priorities. We'll have to review the finances at the start of next year."

"That's an awful lot of money," Han thought enviously aloud. "I'm surprised he was willing to put up that much. Then again a guy like Taskeen could buy anything…"

"Developing a planet is expensive," she reminded him. "And none of the ones we've looked at are exactly stocked of raw materials. They'll have to build everything from scratch, import basic necessities. He can afford it."

"Well," he said, for once without sounding as though he had to make an effort to sound sincere, "I'm sorry it didn't go through. I know how important it was to you."

She nodded, swallowing her heart and her pride. _One of you has to do this first_. "Han?"

"Yup?"

"I missed you when you left."

He looked over at her, eyes darkening with familiar accusations and anger. "I'm sure you did."

"I mean it."

One eyebrow rose and mocked her. "That's such a laugh sweetheart. We all know how long it took you to get over it, don't we? I can count back-"

The blood drained from her face. _Count back from when? They day I_…

"_Leia_." Her name sounded like an apology. "I don't want to do this. Let's not start this."

The printer beeped and spewed out her datasheets. She leaned over and gathered them together in a neat pile, set them in her lap, wondering why she even bothered to try.

Han didn't get up and storm off, but he was shaking his head. "I _can't _do this. I don't know what you expect me to say back?"

"Say back to what?"

"That you missed me. What good does it do Leia? Or are you trying to make me feel guilty."

"I'm _not_."

"Cause it's not going to work."

"I said I wasn't."

"It sure sounds like you are and-"

Mercifully, _finally_, the comlink stuffed in his pocket started ringing. "Solo here." He listened for a moment to whoever spoke on the other end, covered the mouthpiece. "Can you give me a minute?"

She raised her chin regally and cast him a look of disdain. "You're in _my _room. _You _get out!"

_And what did you expect was going to come from that little burst of honesty_, she asked herself after he had left.

Punching her pillows didn't help, nor did throwing them at the walls. She wished he would scream and yell at her if that was what he felt like doing. There would be a reaction she could handle but this… this was hopeless.

Instructing herself to get a grip, she picked up her cold mug of stimcaf, and began leafing through the datasheets.

Something on Yashuvhu had caught Palpatine's interest. There was simply no reason, no _honest _reason, that the Emperor would have visited a world that barely deserved his acknowledgement, that hadn't even joined the Empire. She checked the dates of his visit, compared them to Sarin's estimation of how long he'd been on Baskarn. _One or two years later_? Had his visit merely been a formality, a step in his plan to extinguish the Jedi and create a galaxy that would be unable to challenge him? _No_, she decided; it had to be something very specific.

…_Never believing for a moment that I, a Jedi who had had no formal training beyond that of a healer, would catch the interest of the Empire_.

What was it that would have made Sarin special to him?

_A Yashuvhu Jedi's ability to heal_? Leia wondered. According to her brother, Palpatine's use of Dark magic had aged him rapidly, left his skin gaunt and lined and his eyes sunken and hollow. His appearance terrified most; he had terrified and disgusted her the one occasion they'd met in person. That was back when she'd been elected Senator, nine years ago. Her father had brought her to Imperial City for her swearing in. Her mind's eye could paint the day as vividly as Winter remembered everything she'd ever seen or heard. She remembered walking toward him and praying that she wouldn't stumble or stutter when she made her introductions.

What if Palpatine had been able to see her aura as she strode down the aisle toward him?

She sincerely doubted she would not have lived long enough to find her way out of his throne room. How would they have explained that to her father?

_Young women disappear on Coruscant all the time_, she imagined them saying. _We saw her leave and where she went after that_…

There'd been no escort with her that day - she remembered that. Imperial City with its numerous black guards had felt safe enough for her to go alone. She would never even have known why she died.

Her mind started racing. Before she was born, Palpatine's scientists had created Force detectors, crude and imprecise machinery that betrayed the bluish aura surrounding Force sensitive individuals. It hadn't seemed strange when Sarin described it – she'd heard it before. The Empire had supposedly installed them at custom checkpoints, in the government offices of Coruscant, universities, anywhere large crowds gathered… gambling facilities, where so many _lucky _individuals won repeatedly, automatically bringing death sentences to all those identified. That last tactic had been a calculated act of sheer genius; thousands of unknowing Force sensitives had been picked up, vanished amidst rumours that the casinos were cleansing themselves of scam artists, much to their protests they were not involved.

The idea had to have originated somewhere. The scientists would have needed a prototype, right? An organic, living, breathing prototype? She thought of Alderaan, felt the heartsick moment of suspended disbelief spread through her. She had watched and known then that her very life, her very _existence_, paradoxically sentenced her to unjust culpability for the murder of millions. The shudders of horror turned to spasms of white hot rage. The mug she was holding crumbled and spilled stimcaf all over the floor.

She dropped to her knees and starting collecting the shards and throwing them into the garbage bin at the foot of the desk.

"Hey…uh, Leia. Have an accident?"

Not trusting herself to look up, she fiercely began wiping at the carpet. _What else was there? What else had he done here? How could he_? "My mug broke."

"Huh." His voice sounded strange. "I've got to head out for a while. Rieekan wants to see me."

"What is it?"

"He didn't say. Just that it was urgent."

"Okay."

"You know the rules?"

"Don't let anyone in."

"Where is it?"

She began drying her hands on her pants. "In the nightstand."

"Get it. Keep it with you. And don't…"

"I won't let anyone in. I'm not an idiot."

When the doors closed she grabbed a towel from the fresher and spread over the carpet.

_There is no passion_, Luke had told her, but there was love. There was blood. All the things a Jedi strove to suppress, to surrender to the Force still prevailed, still made them vulnerable. Luke's desire to protect her had brought him to the precipice of Light and Darkness once before and could again.

Maybe that's what Sarin had meant when he said she knew what would happen?

Ramblings about the transient properties of the soul and the physical self flitted back to her. It was mind-boggling and beyond her comprehension.

_Enough for now_, she ordered herself, listening to double check that she was alone. She started a new query for _Ruuria_. He was probably still there.

* * *

**Coruscant: Three months earlier**.

"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" he had asked.

That's how it had begun.

A tycoon and a legend in the world of starship outfitters by the time he was twenty-five, Yail Taskeen was an icon in the capitalist realm. Tall, dirty blonde, not what one might deem handsome in the traditional sense, his charisma made up for any visible shortcomings. He might well have evolved to fit the stereotype of the well-to-do playboy, save for the fact that his shuttle had left Alderaan only an hour before Tarkin had given the order to fire. The near escape from death and the deaths of nearly everyone he knew had had a profound impact on him, changed him from a social climber to a very reclusive figure who immersed himself in his work, and rarely frequented the Core.

Ten million credits was the conditional offer he made to the Alderaanian Refugee's Fund. Shrewd and calculating, he knew that a donation so extraordinary entitled him to a few favors from the New Republic, the occasional blind eye turned towards those of his investments that were on planets still under Imperial control. Leia was more than aware that Yail's generosity, in the long term, would be more profitable for him than the refugees, that these so called favors he wanted would double his fortune within years. For two weeks they met daily to barter over the finite details, negotiated for solutions that both he and the New Republic would find acceptable. She pushed for twenty-five, pointing out he could easily afford it. Yail offered twenty if she would have dinner have with him alone. She told him she wasn't for sale.

He offered twenty if she would agree to have dinner with him when their business was concluded and no question of impropriety remained. She knew his type, knew that he could probably snap his fingers and summon any number of women to his bed. It was rumored he kept mistresses on a dozen worlds. Why a man with that much wealth and power was interested in _her _was baffling, but his attention was flattering, the way he looked at her reminiscent of the way Han used to look at her. They had the same color eyes. She'd been caught off guard one afternoon, said yes.

_It's only a dinner_, she had reminded herself before she left. The first dress she'd chosen was dark and severe, conservative, long sleeved and high necked. She reassured herself she wasn't actually going to _do _anything, that it merely was nice to be complimented and allow a man to make her feel attractive. For one evening she would go out and forget. Then she'd checked her messages, played head games. If Han had messaged she would cancel. He hadn't. If Luke had messaged she would cancel. He hadn't either. She had changed into a clinging red silk, sleeveless and backless, worn her hair down.

It had been a mistake.

Dinner was Alderaanian haute cuisine as it had been in its heyday, traditional l'lahsh and flatbread, taproots and a salad of assorted greens, all prepared by a chef who had once served another of the royal families. They stuck to small talk, the market value of Ilinium at first, his upcoming projects, and his disdain for the smugglers whose pirateering constantly created fluxes and shifts in the global economy. His eyes had been all over her throughout the meal – she could feel them – though she never caught him staring at her directly.

"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?" he asked again.

"Of course not," she intoned quietly.

"You seem very sad."

It wasn't a question so much as an observation. It made her feel vulnerable. _I am_, she wanted to say. _I am, I am, I am_, but she found herself unable to speak. She stared at his glass of Alderaan Ruge, noticed her own was empty, wished she'd shown a little more restraint.

Then he laughed. Either he was trying to break the tension or he hadn't noticed, but it broke the spell.

"What?"

He leaned over and refilled her glass. "You act like no one's ever asked you? As though is seems strange to think someone would wonder?"

"Isn't it," she murmured. Dozens of aides and colleagues nodded their heads at her each day, administrative droids: _Your Highness, Councilor_. Luke was on Folor. Winter was on assignment. Han had not contacted her and she was giving up all hope that would. No one called her Leia. No one asked her how she was.

"You still haven't answered my question."

"Is it really a question?"

"No," he said.

Her feelings evolved from a sense of vulnerability to a curious relief that someone had noticed. She picked up her glass, rose from her seat and wandered across his dining room to the crystalplex case. It was banked on either side by Mardre columns, opaline stone that needed no engraving save its original casting to emphasize its richness, its transparency. Arranged at the base of the columns were potted ladalum and baby Oro trees, coated with multi-colored lichens that resembled swirling rainbows. Both species had been native to their homeworld.

Yail's brother Tyr had been also an entrepreneur of sorts, but he'd lost his fortunes when the Empire had appropriated his operations, having not wisely banked his fortunes in the Corporate Sector out of Palpatine's reach. Tyr had quietly traded in his finery for Generalship, and throughout the war he'd specialized in running the Alliances safe houses, safe worlds, in the Outer Rim. Both men however, maintained numerous properties off world, owned lavish apartments decorated with the finest Alderaan had to offer. Here, it was as though she'd been magically transported back in time. The table they ate at and their chairs were made of red stained hydenock wood. The tapestries on his walls were handmade nerf wool, a series arranged to give a panoramic view of the Castle Lands. His crystalplex showcase was filled with objects that were once commonplace, items she'd seen grown up with; ornate chronos, goblets, picture frames, ornamental trinkets, miniatures of thrantas made of Falasian Liquid Crystal - if they were handled the wings and tails stirred to life, liquid and solid all at once. All of the chronos had been set to the minute of Alderaan's destruction in the capital Aldera, in accordance with the dark tradition initiated by its survivors. The contents of his apartment would have fetched a small fortune.

"I hate to think of them as antiques," he said quietly, peering over her shoulder into his display case. "But it seems a shame to use them if they can never be replaced, and then it seems a greater waste to put them away where I can't see them."

She turned her attention to the painting on his wall, of Lir Lake and signed by Furva Keill. Furva Keill had been a master artist on Alderaan. He'd died along with everyone else, as had the bulk of his life's work. Her father had taken her to Belleau-a-Lir, the island city that was home to Alderaan's diverse artistic community when she was a girl and she told him.

"And I bet now you're thinking the artist's rendition does it more justice than when you actually saw it for yourself."

"No," she laughed. "But it's an accurate criticism." The forests around Lir Lake had succumbed decades ago to a fungus that had killed most of the trees. In the painting, the forest was lush and healthy, the artist's vision of how they would have appeared a century ago in the summertime.

And Yail said, almost under his breath, "I wake up in the mornings and I have to remember it's all gone. I never remember straight away… but I remember eventually."

"I know," she replied, because she did, because she woke up the same way. One of his hands brushed her shoulder, rested there. The setting, expensive liqueur, softly lit halolamps, the feel of his apartment suddenly felt less threatening, less a study in the art of upper class seduction. They were both from Alderaan. They'd both lost everything. They were sharing nothing more than a solitary moment of solemn reflection. She thrust aside her misgivings about accepting the offer in the first place and didn't tell him to take his hand off of her. They stood in front of Furva Keill's painting while she tried to remember exactly what side of the lake she'd been to. Was she to climb inside the painting, where would her image be painted?

Next she felt his hand slip down the back of her dress, to the small of her back. The action was more intimate, vaguely sexual. The small of her back wasn't her breasts or the inside of her thigh, but it wasn't a part of her body anyone other than Han ever touched, bare hand against bare skin. She sipped her ruge nervously, wondering if the warmth that spread through her body was a reaction to him or merely the alcohol.

_And what is Han doing right now, this very second_, that tiny voice inside her asked. He had left after all, not her. She was a grown woman, free to be with whomever she wanted, she was attracted to Yail and…

_Han may very well be doing the same thing_…

The thought filled her with a strange sense of justification. There was no reason to be sleeping alone, waiting for him. Yail slid his fingers up to her neck, over her shoulder again, fingered the strap to her dress.

She had second thoughts. Feeling foolish and pitifully naïve, she reached up and caught her strap before her dress went with it. The server droids were gone; she hadn't heard the sounds of anyone moving about in the kitchen. Down at the entrance to his suites, his driver and private repulsor sled would be waiting to bring her home, but he wouldn't hear her.

"Nothing has to happen if you don't want it to," he whispered against the back of her neck.

No, she wasn't a schoolgirl, an innocent virgin who had no idea what he was after. They were both adults and she was more than capable of fending off his advances. She would tell him she needed to go, thank him for dinner and leave and…

But already her fogged mind was spinning wild assurances, telling her there was nothing wrong with this. She took another sip of her ruge and let her silence answer for her.

It was easier than she expected to kiss him back when he kissed her. Different than Han, but she'd kissed enough men to know it would be.

It was easy to allow him to lead her to his bedroom, to let him undress her, let him push her back on the bed while he moved over her, slid inside her. For all his size and strength he was surprisingly tender and considerate. However she was too shy to ask for what she needed, to shy to tell him how she needed to be touched and where. Her body arbitrarily responded to his with passion and confusion, second thoughts. He was unfamiliar to her, foreign. In the throes of his own passion he hardly noticed her own fading, that she grew passive and did little more than pretend.

Afterwards, when Yail drew his blankets around them, curled his frame around hers, she started to panic. His touch was no longer welcome. And sleep was somehow too personal. Yail might see and not understand. It had been her nightmare after all, that night, which had awoken both of them and led to Han's leaving in the first place. Or it hadn't led to his leaving, but it had been the last straw on a long list of many things.

Han had been standing next to their bed, right before he left. _I do love you_, he had told her.

She struggled out of his arms and reached for her clothes, feeling sick to her stomach. "I need to go."

"Early day tomorrow?"

"Yes," she lied.

He rolled onto his back, watching her dress while she wished he'd look elsewhere. "Ah, but it's Solo, isn't it?"

She averted her eyes and refused to answer. No one, not even Luke, knew why Han had left, that it had not been for a mission but because he wanted to. Yail must have checked up on her and put two and two together. That shouldn't have surprised her. Naturally he would have checked up on her.

"I can be very discreet," he added. "It's all right."

The absurd assurance made her laugh. Maybe Yail didn't know after all. She sat on the bed with her back to him while she slipped on her shoes. "What's all right?"

"I'm heading back to the Corporate Sector tomorrow to head up a mining venture on Ruuria, off the vector prime pathway." He reached out his hand and set it on her hip, stroked the unbound hair. "But I'd very much like to see you when I return."

His message was clear. "We'll see," she murmured ambiguously, because she couldn't imagine saying no at that very moment.

* * *

Luke watched the lips of the men issuing instructions to Han outside his room through the carbon glass. _You have five minutes. No weapons allowed General. No physical contact. We're monitoring this so if there are any problems we'll send guards in directly. SpecForce has been with him all morning and so far he hasn't attempted anything_.

There was a click as the locks released.

"Luke."

Not… _you look strong enough to pull the ears off a gundark_. "Han," he returned. He didn't know what to say next. Not, _how are you_, or _how's it going _or _have you enjoyed your stay on Baskarn_?

"You asked to see me?"

"I did." He tightened his robe and turned around awkwardly. His body was still suffering the aftereffects of four days of inactivity, stiff and uncooperative. He felt clumsy and half awake. In contrast, Han looked obscenely self- composed, though he could feel his anxiousness simmering, anger on the verge of boiling over... and also... "You don't have to be afraid of me," he said.

"Who says I am?"

"Well you're…you're..." He didn't know what to say. He was busy noticing the Corellian's fingers curled around an imaginary blaster, grazing the Bloodstripes running down the outside of his thigh. "I don't know."

Han grimaced and shook his head angrily. "I haven't wanted to believe it. If I didn't hear it for myself..." He shook his head harder. "How could you do it? I heard you… _laughing_. And they're all dead... Even if one of them... even if... You didn't have to kill them all."

"I don't know," he said softly. Because he didn't… because he'd heard the recording too, read the reports the two survivors had given.

The weaponless fingers curled into a fist and arched with lethal precision.

Though he had time to react, to duck, to block it, he did none of those. Instead he waited for the shattering implosion of bone against bone, rattling his teeth and snapping his skull against the wall.

Han's voice was ragged. His arm fell slack against his side. "You _don't know_?"

The wall against his back prevented him from collapsing. Luke struggled to see past the blazing agony that had become the right side of his face, tested his jaw to make sure it wasn't broken, tasted blood, metallic and salty. His eyes watered. Being struck in the face was such a primal assault; outrage tingled with the intoxication of what he _could _do, what he was near doing. "I wouldn't do that again."

"That's right, Luke. Go ahead and try me. Show your true colors."

Out of the corner of his eye, through the window, Luke saw the guards appraising the situation. Whatever their definition of 'no physical contact' was, Han hadn't crossed the line yet. They weren't about to intervene. He flexed his hand, itching to strike back… "I won't," he said.

"Tell me you wouldn't have if I'd been down there."

Again, he had no response.

"I'll take that for a yes," Han growled, slouching his shoulders ever so slightly. "It's nice to know you've got a grip on yourself now."

Luke understood. A test. This had all been a little test and he had passed. It was unexpected, coming from Han. "Feel better?"

"Wish I could say I did," he replied flippantly. "All it does is tell me your sister was right about one thing."

"Which is what?" SpecForce had already told him they were holding Leia as a hostile witness, that she was facing charges when they returned to Coruscant, that she'd been suspended from her position pending the outcome of the investigation.

_Didn't he want to make this easier for her? Didn't he want to confess and exonerate her from any involvement_?

They had no intention of charging her with anything – Admiral Rieekan's thoughts had revealed the threats were no more than pressure tactics, bluffs, though they were intent on forcing her to return with him

"Luke, _why _did you do it? I know you didn't try and destroy the base, or I thought I did, but you still…"

Face afire, he managed to keep talking. "I can't remember. I can't remember much of anything before waking up here but for leaving Leia. Nothing that I understand or that I can explain." They'd told him it had been ten days. "As for trying to destroy the base…" He laughed bitterly, a crazy person. When Rieekan had started hounding him, saying they knew about the shuttle, his plan, he'd almost asked what sort of spice he'd been smoking. A further search of his thoughts revealed he knew about Anakin Skywalker and Leia. He had clammed up and demanded to see Han. "It's ridiculous. Leia knows it."

Han responded slowly. "They're not taking her word for it. I'm sorry but if that's the best defense you can come up with you deserve whatever they have in store for you when they deliver you to Coruscant. I can't help you and neither can Leia."

"I really can't remember anything," he answered. Maybe he and Han had never had heart to hearts, but they _were _friends. He'd _thought _they were friends. Now the older man was facing him as though all loyalties between them had been lost. "Believe me I've tried and I can't. I would tell you."

"Maybe you just don't want to."

"I can't!" He closed his eyes and searched desperately, but it was always the same: Leia, begging him not to go, not to turn back… and Sarin. He didn't know if the Yashuvhi healer was alive or dead, if he was somehow responsible for this, if it there was some other reason his mind and memory were betraying him. He felt violated, a virtual stranger in his body, _enemy _scrawled all over the murderous gazes of those who looked upon him. "I know _who _I am," Luke murmured, barely moving his mouth. "I know who I am and that I wouldn't have done it."

Solo took a deep breath and glared at him in confusion. "I didn't know _who _you were was in question. How…I never thought you had it in you to do something like this. No matter _whose _son you were, or what sort of powers you had, I _trusted _you."

Luke grazed his fingers across his swelling cheek, and then dropped them to his ribcage, which was thick with bandages beneath his robe. _Peace over anger. Honor over hate. Strength over fear. To defeat an enemy, you do not have to kill_. "Am I really that powerful," he wondered. _Because if I am why couldn't I prevent this? Why happened to me?_

"If that's a rhetorical questions its pretty goddamned sick."

Startled, for he hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud, he shook his head. "Han I don't know what happened down there."

"Look. What did you ask to see me for?"

Honestly, he hadn't asked to see him to beg his forgiveness or try and convince him this was all a nightmare. General Han Solo's demeanor at the memorial services he'd attended had been described as grim. This was personal. Striding to the corner sink, he spat out a mouthful of saliva and blood. Then he rinsed out his mouth twice, saying, "I need a favor."

"Right. I'd say the statute of limitations on anything I ever owed you has run drier than the dustball you call home. You're in no position to ask."

The Jedi nodded and dried his face. "No, I'm not, but I'm going to. It's not for me."

"Who's it for?"

"How's Leia?"

"She's…" Han's mood changed abruptly, sympathetic, weary. "She's holding up under the circumstances."

The first thing he'd done upon awakening was reach for her. Her daughter was now no more than a dream or a wish that would never be realized and he was very much to blame. The sense of his sister's loss was a hundred times more painful than the blow to his cheek. "I made her a promise that... under the circumstances I can't keep." He gestured to the clear window and guards. "Not while I'm in custody."

Han followed his gaze, his ire retracting. "Did they tell you she was hit with a stun blast when the team found her?"

"I know. I already know."

"You do?" Han ran his hands over his face. "They really should have let her see you. She should be the one telling you all this."

"I don't want to see her," he lied.

"Well she wants to see you. She's worried sick about you."

He waved his hand, sent ripples of static outward to crunch the sound waves, a Force devised privacy field. "It's not up to her." His voice disintegrated, carried an echo to Han, who looked puzzled and said, "What? _What_?" "They can't hear us," he explained. "Did she tell you what we found?"

"Yeah…" Solo cocked his head, eyed the guards again. "And she wasn't making it up?"

"No." Good then. Leia would know what needed to be done.

"She thinks... she thinks something must have happened to you down there, that you weren't supposed to turn back. For whatever moronic reason, you did and now you're about the most dangerous person the New Republic has ever had in custody."

"Maybe…" Maybe he was. Maybe he'd black out again and awaken to discover he'd slain the entire base. If that was the case, than what he was going to ask was all the more important. There was a rap on the window. It hadn't been five minutes yet, had it?

"They're not partial to having their audio tampered with," Han informed him. "What's this favor you want?"

"I need you to look after Leia for a while."

"What do you think I've been doing?"

"I know. But I need you to do more. Stay with her while I try and sort this out."

"While you try and sort this out," Han repeated incredulously. "That'll be pretty tough to accomplish in prison… Oh…" Slapping the side of his head and sucking in a long breath, he continued. "Silly me, how long do they think they can hold a Jedi? What was I thinking?"

"I give you my word no one will be harmed."

"This time, you mean?"

He winced. There was no point in arguing. Even if he'd expected Han to have more faith in him he didn't have time to try and convince him. "Don't let her return to Coruscant either. It's too dangerous. I want you to find somewhere secure to hole up for a while. I'll contact you, I promise."

"Do you have any idea what you're asking me to do? She's under some sort of pseudo house arrest, in case they didn't tell you."

"_Get-her-out_," he hissed under his breath. "You can figure out a way, Han. I know you can." He fought the urge to mentally nudge him to agree. The pilot was too strong minded. It would wear off, long before the time came for them to leave. Solo had to decide on his own and stick to it. "You know if they believe I sabotaged the shuttle they're not looking for whoever did? They may still be with the fleet. They'll go after her."

"Even if I get past SpecForce…" Han began. "Oh, no, she's definitely not going to agree to this."

"Convince her. _Lie _to her. I don't care what you have to do."

"Where are you going?"

_Dagobah… anywhere I can find answers. I have to remember what happened to me_. "I don't know yet."

Han swallowed. "Pick a place without many people."

"You'll do it?"

"I'm thinking about it."

He waited until his hand was on the door. "You have two hours."

* * *

"That's it?"

Leia was curled on the lounge with her pile of datasheets spread over the coffee table. Both knees were drawn in to her chin, and the soles of her feet were hanging over the cushion. The imitation vors-glass vases had been moved to the matching chairs; their blown wings were outstretched, reclining on the armrests like headless angels.

"That's it," he repeated. "He's… he's physically fine, or he looked fine to me, up and about." He refrained from saying, _mentally your brother is a wreck_. It had been no Jedi in the medcenter; just a broken man whose eyes bespoke some horror that he refused to speak about or couldn't remember. _Amnesia_, Han thought. _He kills sixteen people and he has amnesia_.

She breathed a humongous sigh relief. "Then he'll be okay. I _knew _he would be okay."

"You _did _hear the part about his not being able to remember anything, didn't you?"

"How could I not?" she mumbled. "That's what you keep saying over and over."

Well then, she was apparently finding Luke's amnesia easier to digest than he was, or her composure was merely a smokescreen for what lay beneath. The evidence against her twin was so overwhelming even he was admitting he had done it. He eyed the bizarre setting again. _A tea party_? "I give up. What's with the new décor? Afraid you'd break them too?"

She shot him a hostile glance. "I needed the table space."

He moved to the lounge and eyed the piles of scattered papers. "Any luck?"

There was a faint inclination of her chin, though she didn't say 'yes' and she made a subtle hand gesture that indicated she couldn't risk it being overheard. A vague look of intense concentration descended.

If only he'd swiped one of those thingies… what were they called…_disruption bubble generators _from Bakura, or if only Luke would stick around long enough to teach her a few of his tricks. The copies were of Palpatine, in all his regal splendor, glaring back at him on his visit to Yashuvhu. _The formal tour of the galaxy_, he thought wryly. He'd been a boy when Palpatine had visited Corellia, though the Sector had remained out of the Empire's reach, remembered the throngs of protesters who'd marched in the streets, well wishers who'd marched to support him. It had been a golden opportunity for seamy scams and picking pockets; he'd made a seven year olds equivalent of a small fortune. "Okay, I don't get it," he told her.

There was no response.

"Um, Leia?"

Utter blankness followed.

"Leia?" He waved his hand in front of her eyes. "You in there?"

She leaned forward and scooped up the pile of papers and heaved them as hard as she could into the center of the room.

They snowed to the floor in a lateral fashion, drifting back and forth. Han failed to see what possible connection there could be between Palpatine visiting Yashuvhu decades ago and her meeting a marooned Jedi from the same place here on Baskarn.

"Why won't he answer me?" she cried out, wrenching her gaze away from the mess. "I can feel him. I _know _he can feel me calling him."

So that's what she'd been doing, however this mystical link between them worked. The sudden splotches of red around her nose and eyes, as though she were crying without tears or trying not to cry softened him. He reached over and patted her knee. "Leia I think he needs a little time to himself."

She rubbed her arms forlornly, looked at the lingering touch on her knee. "What happened to your hand?"

Mental images of Luke's face, the livid bruise and swelling appeared. Guiltily he jerked his reddened knuckles away, shoved his hand inside his jacket pocket. He'd had no idea when Rieekan called him he was going to see Luke and there'd been no grace period to prepare himself. "I slammed a door on it."

"Huh. You'd think he'd at least answer me if they're not going to let me see him."

"I know," he assented. "Look… just, give him a little while. They'll let you see him on Coruscant."

_Except Luke has no intention of going there_…

He had debated warning SpecForce on the way back, wondered how dumb the kid was to tell him his plans and expect him to go along with it. But the truth was Luke's behavior had rippled the uncertainties, fierce loyalties, hopes even, that had intermittently plagued him, alarmed him enough to keep his mouth shut temporarily. It wasn't as if he had pleaded for understanding, for compassion, none of the routes he would have expected him to go. He simply looked as though he were unable to care, too drained to care.

Luke had grown up before his eyes, never shedding his farm boy naiveté, even while he'd matured into an overly philosophical Jedi. They might not always agree, but they'd been friends for too long for him to pass him off as a _fallen _Jedi, _dark _Jedi, whatever it was that he brooded over, feared becoming… whatever it was that had driven Anakin Skywalker to become Darth Vader. For Leia's sake he found himself wanting to believe her.

"You don't understand," she was muttering angrily. "You _can't_."

"That you two have some sort of miraculous way to communicate that defies science as I know it? Cause I know that part."

"Not _that_," she replied.

"Then what?"

She squared her hand over her heart. "He _needs _me. I can feel it even though he doesn't want me to. I don't understand…" The cracks in her voice splintered. "He knows, doesn't he? Did you tell him?"

"No," he said softly. "I didn't have to."

"He feels responsible. He feels guilty."

The hope repeated itself. If Luke was truly guilty why was his conscience tormenting him? Suppose he actually didn't remember? That led to a more frightening possibility. What if he had some sort of relapse?

_I'm really going to do this_, he thought, half surprised, half relieved to have the burden of indecision lifted. Luke was right, though not solely for the reasons he'd given. He didn't dare risk allowing her to be returned to Coruscant now.

"You know, maybe he's not ready to face you yet Leia," he suggested.

"Did he tell you that?"

"Not in so many words, but yeah." He started thinking. If they were going to do this it had to be soon. They couldn't very well invite the guards on duty outside the door in for refreshments and lock them in the fresher, although if they could make it closer to the hanger… Inspiration struck. The medcenter had one main entrance and two back entrances. One of the passageways headed directly around to the main foyer, the second – the second was the one the medical staff frequented. It was a shortcut to the personnel wing and the storage facilities. And the storage facilities were adjacent to the hanger the _Falcon _was in; it made it easier to unload medical supplies. Did he remember the layout, whether it was left or right? He strained to recall the tiny map on the door by Leia's recovery room. _You are here… _the tiny arrow had said, and if they had been here then… "Ahhh, didn't Tryll say you should get checked out again before we leave?"

"No one's told us when we're leaving."

"Yeah, but Luke's near fit for traveling."

"I've really had it with people poking and prodding at me."

"It'll take five minutes. A quick scan." He added emphatically, "It'll make _me _feel better. You look a little peaked."

"_You _feel better," she sniffed with a heavy degree of acrimony, flicking her hair over her shoulders. Irritation with him distracted her from her brother. "That's so funny I should be rolling on the floor laughing. I didn't think you cared."

"I do too," he insisted, trying to look offended. For the life of him he didn't know what she had expected him to say earlier. She may have missed him, but he _knew _her, knew she wouldn't have tumbled into bed with just anyone, not without caring about them too. It had sounded like the beginning of one of those pathetic clichés people gave to one another afterwards, to make it easier, make themselves feel better when they confronted with someone else's pain, with the lessening of their own affection toward them. It was all a very familiar song and dance, one he'd dished out more than once, one he'd received a few times too many. He'd let them take her to Coruscant before he'd endure it from her, but knowing they needed to get going, he said, "Five years isn't exactly nothing Leia. I do too care about you."

"Having the New Republic pay certainly doesn't hurt," she said icily, shrugging and shaking her head. "I've always been amazed at how much your sense of charity grows when credits are involved. It's quite remarkable."

Struggling to control his temper, he ground out, in his most even-toned voice, "Fine. You don't want to go, that's okay. But you do look under the weather and your brother made me promise him I'd make sure you were okay."

It was the mention of her brother that did the trick. "If it's that important to you I'll go and get it over with."

"Grab your jacket. I'll clean this up," he offered, standing quickly and sweeping the datasheets together. He double folded them and shoved the wad deep in his pocket, thinking hard…

_The guards will follow as far as medcenter door – they won't come in. It'll take a few minutes to round up Tryll and in the meantime we can be in the hanger before anyone knows we're gone_.

* * *

Except things, he realized once they were there, weren't going to go quite so smoothly.

Innocent people, in his experience, had a terrible habit of getting in the way when all you needed was for them to vanish for five minutes. Four minutes would have been good, even three.

Tryll was already in the examining room, having been called for another patient, and in the process of cleaning up and organizing her notes. More frustrating, Leia ordered him out. He refused to leave, pointed out a bioscan didn't require her to undress. Tryll compromised by drawing the privacy curtains around the table and dragging the equipment behind it with them.

He loitered on the other side of the curtains thinking furiously. A stun blast would draw the attention of the guards. Tryll was stocky and well-muscled enough for him to guess she'd be a tough fighter, and, like so many Alliance medics, she'd served in active combat and was as well trained as the best of the ground forces. Not to mention that women were particularly nasty when it came to hand-to-hand combat. They didn't waste any time gunning for the fastest way to incapacitate a male opponent. In the meantime he'd be unable to bring himself to hit her full strength, and even if he did subdue her, the guards would hear the scuffle.

They had less than a half a standard hour left.

"I can make a copy of your files here for you to give to your physician," Tryll was saying.

"Okay," Leia said.

Feeling at his wits end, Han perused the vast array of medical equipment available to him. The assorted steristeel instruments on her medical cart could be classified as weapons, but he didn't want to hurt her. The vials and medjectors, on the other hand, gave him a brainstorm. In the Academy he'd had a semester of mandatory first-aid. Some of the names were familiar. There was Conergin, a strong anesthetic. Too risky, he decided. He had no idea how much to administer based on anyone's body weight, knew many individuals were highly allergic to it. Beside it were several medjectors full of Nyex, Clondex and Gylocal. Nyex was a potent sedative, and better yet, he'd never heard of anyone overdosing on it. He picked up a medjector and hid it in his hand.

"And I don't know if there's anything you can do to downgrade the amount of stress you're under, but I would try."

"That's sort of difficult here."

He crept around the curtain and flicked the tiny release button, reminding himself to jab her in the neck if he wanted the sedative pumped through her bloodstream in seconds. Seizing her from behind, he clamped a hand over her mouth and jammed the device in just below her ear. She thrashed wildly like panicked prey caught in the grip of its attacker, drove her heels back into his shins twice, wedged her elbow into his ribcage. Stifling a groan, he held on for dear life, felt her go slack by the time he counted to four.

Leia's jaw dropped.

"_Luke_," he hissed.

She stared in shock at the medic. "But you…"

Gently he eased Tryll's limp body onto the floor. "Time to go sweetheart," he whispered. "She'll be fine, she's just taking a nap."

"You…you…"

"And we don't have much time."

Leia took one last look at Tryll and obeyed.

The back passageways were empty. They started running, slowed their steps when they entered the hanger, and Han decided his luck might not be bad after all. There were only a few technicians and droids milling about in the blasted out enclaves, loading antigrav lifters and motor-sleds with garbage to be transported off world. They darted between the sleek Starlight and Interceptor-class freighters, scurried to the uneven stone wall and headed toward the _Falcon _without catching their attention. Han eyed the _Falcon's _hull in the distance and prayed to childhood deities whose names he'd long forgotten that his luck would hold up. It did. There was no sign of SpecForce's agents, no restraints anchoring her to the deck as he'd feared they would be.

"Where's Luke?" Leia started.

He tightened his grip on her hand and dragged her on board, releasing it only when he'd sealed them in. "His Y-Wing's in the main hanger." Although how Luke was going to accomplish that feat would be one for the record books.

"But isn't he coming with us?"

There wasn't time to answer. In the cockpit he started the engines and buckled himself into his chair. The pre-flight check had been done the other night after Leia had gone to bed, as well as a few other minor adjustments. Force-sensitive he wasn't, and he hadn't been planning on escaping from the base, however his gut instinct had badgered him to prepare just in case. The officers outside that night _had _been gullible.

"Han!"

"We have thirty seconds."

"For what?"

"To blast the generator that powers the containment field."

"What about _Luke_?"

"We go first. He goes later!" _Twenty two seconds_… "You know where to go? I can't man the lower quad turret and fly at the same time. Your shot's already lined up for you. Just pull the trigger!"

"Me! Han…"

"_Leia now_! Use the lasers."

"You're crazy!"

"This was your brother's idea! Now go!" _Fifteen seconds_… He heard the far away sound of alarms blaring through the bay's intercom before he saw SpecForce's agents rushing into the hanger like a swarm of tiny black ants. She saw them too, opened her mouth, snapped it shut, and ran for the turret. He picked up his headset, watched security advance toward his ship.

"One hit?" Her voice crackled from the speaker.

"Use your judgment! Whatever it takes."

_Six seconds, five seconds, four seconds, three seconds_…

The monster sized generator exploded, showering the bay with a storm of sparks and metal. Technicians and droids scampered in all directions. Winds started blowing fragments every which way. They were a sure sign that the containment field was down. Maximizing his shields first to deflect any friendly fire, he maneuvered them through the bay slowly, swearing at the dozen or so blasts he heard reverberating off the hull.

Five agents raced ahead of the ship, waving their arms and blasters.

"Get out of the way! Get out of the way!" he shouted, despite the fact that they couldn't hear him and he couldn't hear them. They were obviously shouting at him to stop, jumping up and down in front of his ship. Han closed his eyes and kept going, steeling himself for a big first with the _Falcon_.

One of them didn't move fast enough.

There was a soft thump, and the rest of men must have scattered because no other thumps followed. Han opened his eyes just as Leia charged into the cockpit and threw herself into Chewie's chair. For a millisecond he was relieved she hadn't seen _that_. "Strap in," he ordered sharply. "We're jumping as soon as we clear Baskarn's gravitational pull."

"To where?"

"You'll see."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

* * *

"This is the _stupidest _thing you've ever done."

Han said nothing.

This was the fourth time Leia had told him this and the fourth time that he'd dismissed her. That didn't stop her from saying it again and again.

They had _hopped_, made seven brief lightspeed jumps, dropping out of hyperspace within minutes each time, and to her dismay, ended up exactly where they had started. Had she been paying attention she might have realized what he was up to, but she hadn't, and now they were parked on one of Takornan's moons, tucked into a fissure parallel to the pockmarked and pitted grey surface. The landing grapplers had been unable to claw their way into the rock, and the moon was so small gravity was nonexistent. Using what some termed genius, others insanity, Han had charged the rear and lower vector magnets and was relying on the satellite's high metallic content to keep them stationary until it was time to go. _Stationary _was a loose term for incessantly rocking back and forth while the _Falcon's _repulsors fought to prevent it from colliding with the jagged crown of the fissure. Every few minutes the ship bounced from side to side, up and down, struggling to resettle itself. The proximity alarms wailed incessantly.

Their precarious position had one benefit. They were completely obscured from vessels or sensors overhead, and for the next hour or so, until the moon turned, they had a bird's eye perspective of the planet they'd escaped from. Granted, Baskarn no longer looked like a fairy world, no longer beautiful, inspired none of the awe she had experienced when she and Luke saw it weeks ago. The aureate atmosphere now reminded her of yellowish Cyanogen gas that was fatal to creatures who survived on oxygen, the spumescent clouds reminded her of the eerie smoke that billowed out of crematoriums, that had been life and was now shells that had contained life burning. Together they cloaked and trapped whatever existed down there, all of Baskarn's secrets, all of Palpatine's secrets.

Han was being cryptic and uncommunicative. The way he'd explained it so far, they were waiting to make sure Luke made his escape, and needed to stay out of range of the HOS scanner, which was no more than a silver dot in the far off sky, hovering just above the atmosphere.

Their argument came and went in cycles.

"What if Luke left right after us? He might already be on his way to the rendezvous point."

"I'm betting he didn't."

"How would you know?"

"I don't. I'm guessing."

They kept waiting, staring at the real life planetarium. Red hydrogen drifts floated by, casting a pink glow in the inside of the cockpit. No craft were in their field of vision, no reconnaissance vessels left to make their runs. It was quiet. _Keep your eyes peeled for any sign of activity_, Han had told her.

"Aha… Aha... _There _they are."

Eight vessels came tumbling out of the atmosphere, trailing fiery streaks of protoplasm. Han switched on his multiview display system, ran through the group to check their identifications. He pointed to a tiny blip on screen, tabbed for higher resolution. "That's Luke."

She leaned nearer to the screen. "Are you sure?"

"His was the only Y-wing right? See… sixteen meters in length, one life form on board." He squinted. "Disc ventrals attached to the avionics. The rest are snubfighters. There weren't any others there… and I'm guessing they wouldn't take his own ship out for a spin to get him."

"Okay." So he'd been right. She checked to make sure the _Falcon's _communications were on – Luke knew the frequency, though she wasn't sure he knew they were within range, and the snubfighters wouldn't jam him since they didn't know they were there. _But he must_…

"Is there a master code encryption back with the Fleet to crack into their communications," he asked.

"Why?"

"Can I have it?"

After a moment's consideration, Leia decided that aiding and abetting in her own escape (destroying New Republic property to boot) reduced handing over top secret codes to Han to an inconsequential offence. She gave it to him, watched him key it into his surveillance transceiver and turn up the intercom, wondering if Luke knew they were here, if they were waiting for instructions on where to go.

_"Blue Seven and Blue Eight- you're cleared to follow him when he makes a jump. The rest of you hold your positions. Fire to disable if you can. Ion cannons."_

"I can't get a lock, Blue Leader."

"Keep trying

."

Leia knew her sibling's astrogation abilities exceeded his craft's nav-computer, that he could plot a jump in a split second. She tried to relax and reach out for him...

Just as his Y-Wing vanished from the scopes.

"_Blue Leader, this is Blue Seven. Preparing to jump."_

"Clear Blue Seven. Follow last known trajectory."

"Repeat message, This Blue Eight

."

They watched as two more of the crafts on his scopes disappeared. Five remained.

"He'll lose them," Leia commented.

"Yup. He will," Han agreed. "The kid's a good pilot."

_Then why are we sitting here_?

A few more curt replies followed, Blue Leader ordering his squadron to hold their positions and wait for further instructions. The pilots started jabbering amongst themselves.

"_They were really asleep?"_

"The entire unit outside his room?"

"Like babes in their mother's arms."

"And no one saw him in the hanger

?" The pilot's voice was incredulous.

"_Get this! He told him he was cleared to leave."_

"And they listened?"

"Gee whiz, Mack! Do you live in some sort of media deprivation tank? Haven't you ever heard about the stuff that guy can do?"

"Rieekan must be pissed. After Organa and Solo…"

"Well none of us wanted a head to head show with Skywalker. My brother was training under him at Folor. He'd held all the sim records."

"Hope we're not up here too long. I was on my way to the mess hall when we were called. My stomach is growling."

"Yeah, I can hear it over

-"

Han switched it off. "He put them to sleep, that's all, used a little mind control."

The revelation was instantaneous. She wasn't sure whether to be furious at him for doubting her brother, or to admire his sense of civic duty to the New Republic and the base. He made no move to try and follow Luke, though at this point it would have been foolhardy. Her heart sank. "Han?"

"Uh huh."

The _Falcon _bumped and rocked again, the alarms squealed. She seized the armrests, feeling acutely spacesick. "There isn't a rendezvous point, is there?"

A flicker of guilt appeared. "No."

"Where is he going? Did he tell you that at least?"

Han continued watching his multiview display screen. "He actually didn't say. I asked and he wouldn't."

Her heart sank further. "Where are we going?"

"Well…" He swallowed and gave her a minimal rendition of his famous lop-sided smile. "Where would you like to go?"

"Coruscant," she replied immediately. There she would appeal to the Senate Justice Council to review SpecForce's, handling of the investigation, although she would have a hard time explaining how she had left, and whatever credibility she might have had would be circumspect.

The smile evaporated. "Negative."

"_Negative_? What do you mean negative-"

"You're brother thinks it's too dangerous."

Then they _had _planned this, somehow when Han met with him. She pictured Tryll's unconscious form on the floor of the examining room again. Then she thought about the Korriban Station, watched Han move to start up his engines again. _No, no, no_…"Wait."

"Wait?"

"Wait!" It was a gut instinct she wasn't sure she understood, except that they couldn't leave yet…

Four X-wings dropped out of hyperspace over their heads, so close to their hiding spot if they were upside down they would be waving to the pilots.

"Whoa…" Han murmured. "Impressive. You know what? I think we'll stay put after all." He craned his neck forward and peered out at them. "You think they traced us back."

"Or they've given up already and are returning to the base."

He swore. "And they're scanning but... the metallic content should shield us."

Leia kept thinking. "How long is it until this moon is no longer in range of the HOS?"

Han checked his readings. "Seven hours…but it doesn't matter since we'll-"

"Could we drop down to Baskarn's surface without being detected then?"

"Why would we want to do that?"

"What sort of explosives do you have on board?"

"Why?"

"There's something I need to do."

"Oh no," he groaned. "No way. If it's what I think you're thinking, the only way we're gonna be able to get there is at night. They're still running searches during the day. I'll have to go a thousand kilometers between those clouds and ridiculous trees, not to mention those floaters. It's bad enough when there's light."

"I thought you were the pilot who made the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs?"

"I'll let you in a little secret. That wasn't on purpose. I damn near got myself killed."

"I've seen you fly through asteroid fields more than once."

"Leia, it's risky and _stupid_!"

She had no other choice. Hastily she told him what she'd found during her research, about the force detectors, that everything pointed to Palpatine using Jedi as test subjects and prototypes.

Han's face was a study in grim disbelief. "I never heard of them," he replied, "but I do remember some strange tales from a few old-timers, the smugglers who were destined to spend their dying days smuggling because every time they made a profit they gambled it away."

"Not like you."

"Hey…" He pointed his finger at her. "My winnings have saved me and you more times than I can count, haven't they? Haven't you old girl?" He reached over and patted his mismatched paneling with more affection than any inanimate object rightly deserved. "Anyway, there were places you didn't go to play if you wanted to live. That's what I remember a few of them saying. I thought they were superstitious and paranoid."

"They usually refer to it as a side effect of the criminal lifestyle."

"I was _never _paranoid," Han protested. "And I was _no _criminal."

Crooked illegal enterprises and honest illegal enterprises differed only as a matter of perspective. Han's personal code of ethics was too firmly ingrained for her to make a dent in it. She had no time to bother now. "Well maybe it was more than superstitions. Maybe they had their reasons. All I know is that as it stands I can't give them the coordinates to our escape pod until I make sure there's nothing left for them to find at the Korriban Station. And it might the only chance I have to prove that Luke didn't rig the _Razion's Edge_." Drawing on Sarin's analogy out of sheer desperation, she continued. If she had to beg, so be it. "Han, it would be like turning the Death Star over to our scientists and praying there was never a leak. Please don't tell me you don't understand. I know you do."

He said nothing for a few minutes, set his jaw in an all too familiar grip that meant no, even though she knew in his head he was debating it. "Why do you have to put it that way?" he sighed finally.

"I don't know what else to say. I'm trying to make a point of how imperative this is."

"It's working."

"Is it?"

"If I adjust the underside sensors I might be able to do it."

"That's a yes?"

"Well I'm not gonna adjust them for fun. Plus… plus… well I want to see the escape pod for myself."

She resumed her observation of Baskarn and fought back tears. Luke had really left without a touch, without a reassurance, without a message for her. She wondered if he'd had to convince Han, guilt him into doing this, and then she wondered what Han was planning to do with _her_. He'd made it quite clear over the past week that his support was limited to security and that she was his _assignment,_for lack of a better word. Every crack in his professionalism was fleeting and too insubstantial for her to analyze; occasionally genuine, more often reluctant. If only he could set everything aside for a minute.

While she was thinking he made no move to leave. Maybe he was trying remember which sensors needed the adjustments. It wasn't the time or the place, and her gut instincts told her this was a bad idea, that it would fail as it had that afternoon, but she heard herself trying anyway. "Han, can we talk?"

He peeled off his flight gloves and set them on the console. "I should really go get started."

"Can you wait a minute?"

His cheek twitched once, the way it usually did when he was irritated. "I said we'll do it. We'll take care of the station, pick a new destination…"

"Are you planning on dumping me off at the most convenient spaceport?"

"I do that, and you'll be on the next available transport to Coruscant. Like I said, I'm not about to let yourself get killed."

Did anything matter to him? "For old time's sake, right. Because five years mean something to you."

"Something like that."

_This is so insane_, she thought. _He just slammed a sedative into the Base's chief Medic; he just broke you out of the base. Now he's in as much trouble as you are, he's put his commission at stake and he's probably going to tell you he was bored and thought this would be fun_.

"Naturally," she quipped sourly, "You came to Baskarn out of the goodness of your heart, decided to join the search for old time's sake too. Was your initial plan to make sure I was alive and take off again?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you're full of it. How much longer are you going to keep acting like you hate me?"

Something in him charged, or was unleashed. He swung his chair around so viciously it screeched on its bearings. "You know what Leia? Fine! Let's drop the damned charade. Whatever I expected doesn't matter! Whatever I had planned didn't matter, get it! No hypothetical games. I was gone two months Leia! Two fucking months before you were rolling around in someone else's bed! Whatever I thought? Whatever I was expecting from you… huh…" He laughed sarcastically. "Oh and by the way, Sweetheart, it just occurred to me I never asked when the wedding was."

She was on her feet instantly, storming toward the main hold, snapping, "Ooooh! Thanks for reminding me what a low class, low born, jealous… _bastard _you are! I don't know why I'm wasting my time trying to talk to you! I'd almost forgotten what you were like!"

Ten steps later she realized the emergency floor lights weren't on and she wound up stuck braced against the wall in the darkness. Han was yelling after her to get back up front. Luke was headed for the gods knew where, and if no one in the New Republic would listen to her…

Miserably she crept back to the cockpit where Han was glowering at the disabled multi-view screen. "Do we have any lumas."

"Hanging over your head where they usually are, but I don't know where you think you're going. You can't reconfigure the sensors. You need to stay up here and keep watch."

She reached above the stanchion and defiantly searched around for one anyway, saw Baskarn leering at her, laughing. _When you first saw this, you were a mother-to-be, a representative of the New Republic, a sister_… "I never told _him _- the father - I was pregnant and I wasn't going to marry him," she said quietly. "I took the mission to Baskarn because I knew you would be back with the fleet and I was afraid to tell you, if your thick skull can wrap itself around _why_. Maybe that makes me a coward. And… you might be too angry at me and hurt right now to admit it but I know you care or you wouldn't be doing this."

Silence followed. It felt like days. "There's no reward waiting for you this time either."

"Who was he Leia?"

"Someone…" She took a deep breath. "Someone I was working with."

"Do I know him?"

"No." They'd never met in person, so technically it was true. "He's gone."

"How long were you seeing him?"

"It was one night."

"I don't believe you," Han said softly, finally wrenching his gaze away from the screen.

"Why would I lie about this? What do I possibly have to gain by lying to you? As far as I'm concerned you don't even have the right to ask."

"I want to know who it was."

"Look! You know what, you... you..." A suitably despicable enough description evaded her. "If this is how you're going to be then _dump _me off at the nearest spaceport. I'd rather take my chances with the Fleet. It doesn't matter. It was one time-"

Han reached over and set his hand on her hip, lightly at first, then he dug his fingers cruelly into her flesh as though it would stop her from fleeing again. It wasn't tender or kind. "One time, one night or-"

Her cheeks flushed with fury. "Don't! Don't you dare pull this act with me. Last time I checked my I.D. it did not have _Property of Han Solo _stamped on it! Don't you even want to know whether I cared about him or loved him? That's what I would be asking you!"

"Sure you would." He stood up. The hand slid possessively up her side, grazed the curve of her breast. "So you're saying it was just sex?"

"Yes." The base affirmation barely made it out. She felt small and defenseless looking up at him, half his size, his face hidden in the shadows.

"And _that's _supposed to make it okay?" He seized her by the shoulders. "It doesn't. What about us? _You _got pregnant. You don't…" He started shaking her. "Leia I saw how you were in the medcenter that day. I know how much… she meant to you."

"My daughter," she whispered. Her insides felt numb and cold, as though third degree burns had deadened not nerves, but emotions. She thought if they cut her open there would be nothing left inside, just a huge empty space. Han kept shaking her but she felt unmovable, rooted in the eye of the storm. "_Mine_. It was a part of me. It happened and I have to deal with it. Of course I was upset! I am still upset!"

His eyes were ice and metal. "It was also a part of _him_," he said hoarsely. "And you know what makes this all worse. I'm stuck biting my tongue, trying to do the honorable thing here and I can't even say any of the things to you I want without hating myself. You have no idea how _that _feels. So it's better if we just don't."

"Don't what?"

"There's no point," he countered. "And whatever I did think doesn't matter. I had my reasons for leaving and maybe in the grand scheme of things this wasn't the outcome I wanted or hoped for. All I know is…" he dropped his hands. "Obviously you're not the person I thought you were."

"Why? Because the Leia you know would have crawled into some hole and begged you come back? Is that what you wanted? That isn't me! It never was! I'm still the same person, Han. Yes, it changed everything and I loved her but I'm still me... and…" He was winning suddenly; she shouted, pointing at him, throwing out anything she could think of. "I didn't walk out on us! _You _did! And for the record, I shudder to imagine how many times you've done the same thing."

His expression hardened. "Maybe you didn't know _me _very well then. Not with you. I would have had too much respect for you to do that so soon." His ego intervened, a touch of brash Corellian swagger. He raised an eyebrow suggestively, alluded to a memory she could only guess at. "It's not that I didn't have my opportunities, sweetheart – cause believe me I did - but I didn't act on them. As for you…" He slammed his fist into the stanchion so viciously she recoiled, stepped around her chair and pressed her back against the side view port. "Don't tell me this was some sort of imaginary way to even a score with me, and if it was…" He hit the headboard again and ducked beneath it. "I've gotta go rework the bloody sensors. You keep watch up here!"

* * *

By the time dawn arrived they were safely at the scene of the crash. Han had managed to max out the belly side sensors, which enabled them to fly safely between the forests and the cloud cover.

They avoided each other until right before they left the moon, when he'd wandered back into the cockpit and found Leia staring at the waxing planetary horizon. He'd stood behind her, looking at the crown of her head, and said, "The sensors are all set but I need your help. I have a case of thermal grenades buried in the smuggling compartments. You're small enough to crawl down there and find it."

It wasn't the most direct, 'let's put everything else aside,' sort of line, but it had came out sounding half conciliatory. Screaming at each other would solve nothing. For the immediate future, they needed to work together.

They'd settled into speaking when needed again.

Han examined the escape pod, noticing when he lifted the camouflage netting that their maneuvering jets _and _the reverse thrusters had been blown out. Inside the pod crash webbing hung to the floor, one of the safety straps had torn loose. SpecForce would have to be crazy to see it and think Luke _planned _anything. Barring their bizarre assumption that it had been a suicidal operation, most criminals had a knack for putting their own survival first. As for the remote, there wasn't one he could see. He debated ripping apart the paneling and looking for it, but it would be important for SpecForce to find the pod as it was, not tampered with.

They left and landed in the next clearing under Leia's direction. His sensors picked up the sub-surface inconsistencies immediately, though he doubted he would have found the odd drop shaft concealed in the tree trunk without knowing what to look for. Skywalkers apparently had some internal beacon that served as a magnet for trouble.

Leia flashed her glowrod around while he eyed the haunting scene between coughs. If he ever had the misfortune of returning to Hoth and seeing the remains of Echo Base, this was how it might look, except the freezing temperatures would have preserved the bodies. Here they were so long gone even Corellian corpse grubs would have starved. It gave him the creeps. "How did you want to do this?"

"The computers and consoles." Leia patted the satchel with the explosives. "Anything that might have decipherable data stored inside."

"Well…" He swung his arm out. "You lead the way."

They hit the laboratories first. Though the consoles were in pieces, Han knew a few intact chips could contain a thousand kilo-trems of data. The MD-4 droids possessed a capacity to store data too, and if their memories hadn't been wiped before the attack whatever they remembered would still be in there. The New Republic was exceedingly proficient in all sorts of databank retrieval systems, though they still had a long way to go with the Imperial Records Library on Coruscant. In recent years the Imperials had taken to leaving clean up crews to demolish every last piece of equipment.

When the laboratories were set, Leia led him through a series of winding passageways, past the personnel quarters and into the storage facilities. She gestured to the crates and piles of loot. "Look… I know you're not getting paid for any of this and…"

"And what?"

"If we're going to need the credits?"

"I don't," he said, sincerely hoping they weren't going to be on the run that long. He'd only been paid half in advance for his last assignment, and avoiding Coruscant meant he wasn't going to be collecting the rest any time soon.

"It's okay," she assured him.

Koolach silk fetched a thousand credits a yard, Farberrie Liqueur two thousand a liter. A crate of the Hapen Wine, along with the jewel encrusted bottles would have paid for the _Millennium Falcon _five times over, plus every modification he'd ever dreamed of. He gulped back visions of a new Quadex Power Core, the latest Arakyd Concussion Missile Launchers, spare cryonic reserve power cells, Seinar Fleet System upgrades. But this was all blood money. He pretended to test the air temperature, held out his hand. "Trouble is Hapen wine has to be kept exactly at 28 degrees or it skunks. It's… It's too warm down here."

"You think? Luke tried some wine… he almost spit it out but…"

"The connoisseurs will want their money back. Trust me," he lied, knowing full well the underground station was cool, a natural cellar. The stuff would literally be worth a fortune. The Dawnstar gems on the bottles would be worth a fortune even if the wine had soured.

"What about the rest of it?"

He shrugged. "None of it's easy to unload. You can buy Farberrie Liqueur on the black market from anyone – or you could back in the day. I don't feel like lugging bolts of fabric and crystal around, do you?"

"No…" She sounded relieved. "In that case there's only one place we have left to go."

He checked his chrono. "We have twenty-six minutes until the fireworks begin."

"It'll be quick," she promised. "I don't want to be there any longer than I have to."

Cell blocks most definitely weren't on Han's list of favorite places.

He rubbed his sleeve along the ceiling of the hallway, stared up at his own reflection in the shiny streak swished through the layers of dust. Polished to perfection the black walls and ceilings were essentially mirrors. The purpose was twofold. Not only would the guards have caught the tiniest movement out of the corner of their eyes, but a prisoner would have been able to see himself reflected from every direction in his cell, lain there watching his or her deterioration. It effectively heightened the claustrophobic nature of the place.

"Luke and I both felt something here," she told him.

No, he didn't need to be force-sensitive to _feel _the lingering horror, nor did he need to know Leia well to see how it affected her. "I take it wasn't a good feeling."

"No… it was…" she shivered. "It was awful. It was like every awful feeling you've ever had bombarding you at once… pain, loneliness, fear, grief, guilt… _hatred_." She walked over to one of the cells and peered inside. "Words don't explain it. This is where it's strongest."

Han tried in vain to feel something other than his own survival instincts urging him to flee. "You can feel it now?"

She nodded.

He flashed his light around and saw the interrogation droids, and that Leia was looking everywhere else. "So you want to just…uh… put everything we have left in here and blow it to smithereens." He rapped on the wall. It wasn't the standard duranium the Imperials favored for cell blocks, nor was it steelfab. "Cause I don't know what these walls are made of but I'm guessing they're reinforced with something…."

"That a Jedi couldn't escape."

"Or that we can't blow up, but speaking of the Jedi, I thought there was no such thing."

"Well there must have been. They couldn't get out." She tentatively stepped across the threshold. "Luke says things that happen, in the Force they don't fade right away. They're like smells… when you've been cooking all day."

Han stepped to the left, heard a distinctive crunch beneath his boots. The light revealed what looked like finger bones. He grimaced. "Only here whatever you're making is simmering away on the stove."

"Yeah."

And it was worse in that cell? "Well maybe you shouldn't be in there."

"I might be able to pick something up. Just… set the last few and give me a moment."

He kept an eye on her while he unpacked their last five grenades, activated them and rolled them down toward the droids. It was a relief to finally get rid of them anyway. One never knew when heavy artillery power might come in handy, but the idea of flying around with them in a storage compartment made him nervous. They were one of the many odd _gifts _he'd found stashed (and promptly appropriated) on his ship after he was released from carbonite, and he'd never exactly gotten around to asking Lando what they'd been for to begin with. Leia remained standing with her back to him. "Anything?" he asked.

There was no answer.

He ducked inside and touched her shoulder. "Hey. Let's go."

Her breathing was frenetic by the time she turned back to him, her eyes alight with a strange fire. "They're still calling for help. I can still hear them. I don't know how… I don't know how to..."

"Leia, there's no one here, remember? It's just us."

"But-"

"An echo," he tried. "Like smells or whatever you were saying a minute ago. Sarin told you they were all dead. They all died."

"They all died," she repeated, as though she was trying to understand what that meant. "It's too late."

He caught her arm and dragged her outside the cell. "Come on. We don't have time for this. We hang around and it'll be too late for us too."

They were on the _Falcon_and prepared to take off within ten minutes. Han eased his ship several meters off the ground. The blasts wouldn't reach them, but he wasn't sure the roof of the underground hanger would remain stable. They spent the last seven minutes hovering in silence, watching the cockpit timer and glancing below them. The first explosion was no more than a distant rumbling off in the distance, a gentle earthquake muffled beneath the surface. It was followed by a second, and the rumbling intensified; the grenades created a chain reaction by prematurely setting off the rest. Tiny ripples spread across the clearing, the massive trees shivered, and fog rose from the beneath the grass carpet, broke apart into wisps beyond his view port.

"It's like souls rising," Leia murmured.

"Now you're being spooky," he replied, even though he agreed. It was kind of like watching spirits rise to the heavens.

He nosed the _Falcon _up and headed for the stars beyond Baskarn. They were quiet again until they jumped, checking repeatedly to make sure SpecForce hadn't tagged and followed. Lightspeed was oddly comforting.

It had been a miracle, really. Han's mind, woefully short of Threepio's statistical and mathematical skills, fumbled to come up with the odds for Luke managing to find a place for them to land. The Hmumfmumf trees offered no reprieve, no clearings for emergency landings. If they'd landed on top of them and hadn't been picked up within a few days, they might have died there. After seeing the shuttle, it was very apparent that someone had been willing to go to great lengths to kill both of them. He tried hard not to think about how things might have turned out differently.

Leia broke the silence first. "I can't believe I just did that."

"Me either."

"Do you think we did the right thing?"

"I think so," he reassured her. "Not to say that having a Jedi as a friend has made me biased or anything, but if they came up with a bunch of stuff that only affected Corellians I wouldn't want it to get out."

"And knowing there are people who exist and will pose the same sort of threat to your children, how they would use whatever they found here…"

He wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"That's what scared me most," she said quietly. "I hadn't… thought about it yet and it was a sort of wake-up call. There will be no age of renewal or rebirth for the Jedi without endurance and sacrifice and I'm part of it." She squinted her eyes and rubbed her temples. "And now I have a headache."

"Why don't you go lie down," he suggested. They'd been awake for over twenty hours. He was beat too, not thinking straight and he didn't want to fight any more.

"Do we have a course set?"

"Right now to the edge of the Sector," he told her. "We'll drop out halfway to see if we can reach Harkness and dump the coordinates of the escape pod on a skip transceiver for someone at Baskarn to decipher. The sooner we find out what that message was about the better." He steeled himself for an argument – generally Leia had some slightly altered plan than she always thought was superior to his own. Today there was none coming.

"I think I will do that."

Dumb kindness tumbled from his lips. "The heater in the crew cabin isn't working and Chewie's berth is covered in so much fur you'll suffocate so if you want-"

"I can find extra blankets."

_Your hands and feet are always blocks of ice_, he thought. "Okay. You know where they are."

* * *

Despite being physically and mentally exhausted, sleep was elusive. Han hadn't been kidding when he said the heaters weren't working, and although she'd bundled herself in as many extra blankets as she could find, the frigid cold of space felt as though it were creeping through the floors, into the narrow berth. Leia prayed it was only the heater and that the _Falcon _wasn't finally falling apart and depressurizing after all of Han's abuse. She thought of what Sarin had showed her, the morning before they left, the glimpses of the Light side as a sacred realm. It was less of a conduit for the Force and in essence peaceful and soothing.

_The Force reclaims its own_…

Her awareness of the infinities of darkness and death was ruptured and fragmented, riddled with holes. Those who had perished on Baskarn… Maybe Palpatine had sought to deny the Jedi their one respite from his cruelty, cutting them adrift of the light to which they were destined to return, to their birthright. It was too late for them, for justice, for a rescue, but it was difficult to shake off the sense that she had failed them somehow. Even Anakin Skywalker - who did _not _deserve it - had been absolved by the light, returned to its embrace upon his passing.

Maybe her daughter had too…

The simultaneous thoughts jolted her into a state that was not conducive to rest. She lay perfectly still, listened to the sound of the broken heater hiss. Its wheezes briefly achieved a chilling rhythm…

_If Tarkin had not come up with his scheme to use Alderaan's to illustrate the Death Star's capabilities, the ensuing torture would have in all likelihood killed you. And even then it couldn't have been worse than whatever diabolical form of termination Vader was planning… He was going to kill you_…

She broke out in a cold sweat and sat up, groped around for the lights. There were things one knew better than to think about when they were trying to fall asleep. Horrible ways your own father would have killed you were certainly one of them. In the hours after Alderaan had been destroyed, she had no longer cared what was going to happen to her. It was only in reflection, in the aftermath, that the panic and terror had set in. And later, as time went on, bits and pieces of things that did happen, long suppressed, began to surface. She climbed out of the bunk and dragged herself, blankets and all, onto the floor. The throbbing ache in her temple from the stress of the day encouraged her to unclip her braid, and moments later it cascaded free over her face, spilling onto the carpet.

The therapist she'd been sent to immediately after the Battle of Yavin had said the recovery process from the combined traumas would take years.

_I'm handling it_, she remembered saying.

She'd wished desperately then that she was merely something that could be put back into place easily, like an ornament or a vase. An object that rested idly on a hard to reach shelf, taken out for infrequent celebrations, its absence from that one spot it claimed a glaring reminder that it was missing, that at some point in time it would have to be returned. That she even had a place to be set back would have been enough. Instead she'd felt as though she were a glass shattered into millions of pieces, that no amount of solvent could glue together again.

It was standard procedure after Imperial capture to be red-flagged and given a psychological evaluation before resuming active duty, though she hadn't known that when she'd gone to the medcenter on Yavin IV. She'd been sick. She'd been exhausted. She'd been dizzy. Her entire body had ached. The insides of her head had ached. Her heart had ached. People kept hugging her and inadvertently pressing their hands along her spine. The medics had exchanged pained looks when they saw the needle marks and bruises. She hadn't wanted anyone to touch her. She remembered feeling ashamed, seeing their faces, rolling up her sleeves to show them her arms and asking to be released to the command center during the battle.

The victory had only begun when she'd been ordered back, but by then the adrenaline was wearing off, the pain killers, and it had been growing impossible to stand on her own two feet without swaying. Everyone had started to mourn Alderaan between the hurrahs, begun offering their apologies. She hadn't been able to take it. The medcenter had been an escape then.

The therapist repeatedly asked her if she had suicidal thoughts or felt that she was responsible for Alderaan. _No and yes_. If she was dead she couldn't very well make the Empire pay for what it had done, and she was willing to die to do it. Wasn't that empowering, liberating? If she was responsible for Alderaan than her life's purpose had been set out for her.

_I live, I breathe, I fight, I will make them pay_…

It had been enough to sustain her for two years. Time slipped away from her like water in her hands, defined not by standard months or hours, but bases and battles, triumphs and losses.

When Han was in carbonite she realized her life had become much more than to her than a mission, that she had cultivated ordinary dreams, that she wanted to be happy, that she saw her life transcending the war. Searching for him had been, in a sense, her way of taking her desire to live into her own hands for the first time in years, allowing her own needs to take priority. Leaving the Alliance temporarily had been viewed as a healthy decision by her compatriots. It lumped her in with the statistics. She was young enough for her idealism to re-grow, regenerate, find fertile ground and new hope. Alderaan's younger generation was the one that moved on. The old made up the majority of those who flew blind into the graveyard, as though they expected to die and awaken in Alderaan's heavens with their loved ones.

Then Endor…

She'd lost her way since then. There was no one to pray to, no fertile ground for roots to burrow, no anchor to prevent her from drifting. Denial was no longer a reprieve, a defense mechanism, a closet to hide in. Grief was a bittersweet friend whose presence she was so accustomed to she sometimes felt immune to it. Han was the only constant. When he had left four months ago it had hurt a hundred times worse than when Fett had disappeared with him, knowing it had been his choice, that maybe he didn't believe a future awaited them.

_He needs time_, she told herself. _He's angry and he's been bottling it up for two weeks and… At least if he's lashing out you it's leaving his system_.

Except… he was responding to her attempts at honesty the way a Hutt would to a respond price increase mid way through a deal.

And they still needed to find Luke. Had he had so little faith in her that he feared she would have turned him away? Resentment flared within her breast, withered. It wasn't like Luke to run.

_It wasn't your fault, Luke… It wasn't and I would have done anything within my power to help you through this_.

She burrowed her nose against her bare shoulder. "Where would he go?" she wondered aloud. Master Yoda's home, without a doubt, only she had no idea where it was, what system it was even located in. He had told her once it wasn't even on any of the Alliance charts, which ruled out running searches for uninhabited swampy planets. Endor. It was also a possibility but it was on the other side of the galaxy. She remembered how homesick he'd felt on the voyage out here and that Tatooine was only a day away from the edge of the Sector. If she knew him as well as she thought she did he would go there eventually, to Ben Kenobi's.

Convincing Han to go there was going to be another problem. Setting all but one blanket on the bed, she decided she'd have a better sleep on the couch in the main hold than in a refrigerator.

* * *

Han couldn't sleep either. He was trying to think of sanctuaries that were devoid of both the Empire and the New Republic, old friends they could visit who he could trust to keep their silence. If only most of them hadn't prematurely retired from life altogether, or wound up at places like Akrit'tar sentenced to hard labor. The few prosperous grifters he knew who were still out there had made it by tossing aside morals and old loyalties, and unfortunately, he and Leia would fetch a bounty worth drooling over.

Additionally, freelancing for the Alliance, accepting a Generalship with the New Republic, meant many of his old smuggling contacts wouldn't touch him with a ten foot poll. He was too famous, too easy to recognize, too long out of the loop.

He'd briefly considered dumping her at the nearest spaceport like she said, going pick up Chewie…

_Now that would be dumb_, he thought wryly. _Where would you go_?

For the first time in five years he was denouncing his nostalgia for what it was; memories aged to the point of distortion. Sifted to grit, the freedom was what beckoned to him most in his daydreams, yet here he was, worrying about what this jaunt with Leia was going to cost him. He was a man who did the _right _things for the _right _reasons now, one who'd often been accused of being exactly the opposite in the past. The sliver of introspection dismayed him. He missed his old self.

Then he'd started thinking about Leia.

Every time he closed his eyes he saw her, standing by the co-pilot's chair, fragile as a moonflower moth's wing. He remembered thinking that if he tightened his grip a little more, she would break, or he could throw her down and it would end this feeling that had to do _something _or it was going to kill him. Passion rooted in emotions such as jealousy and anger wasn't unknown to him, but he'd never been so near to acting on them, these emotions that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with this other man.

Everything on the _Falcon _made it worse; it was a hunk of metal and a stroll down memory lane combined into one. Across from the engineering station was the panel containing the valve Leia had been welding the first time he'd kissed her, where she'd kissed him back that day with an equally raw and hungry passion that had caught them both off guard. That anyone else knew she was capable of it made him to sick to his stomach.

They'd made love for the first time on this ship, in his cabin.

When his and Leia's last anniversary had rolled around it had become the longest relationship he'd had with any woman. Leia wasn't the first woman Solo had ever loved, but she was the first one who he felt truly loved him back. The one he'd trusted the most. The one he knew deep down inside was probably too good for him, and he'd marveled over what in the galaxy had made her choose him. It wasn't in his nature to trust easily. It never had been. The gritty fact was that the majority of his life experiences with people had only reinforced his conviction that he was better off alone in the long haul, though he was never sure that Leia quite got that, how much she guessed.

By the time he was thirty, his list of one night stands and brief romances had been so long he couldn't even remember all of their names. A few had caught more than his fleeting attention: There'd been Fiolla, Jess, Hasti and Fenig… Others were categorized into the blondes and the brunettes, the redheads – one green, the voluptuous and the thin, the one's who played mind games, the one's who would have readily confessed they were using him, the ones who bought him meaningless trinkets, the ones he wasted his credits on when it suited him, the ones who'd tried to tie him down. They'd all served a purpose, a moment's pleasure, a respite from being alone but nothing more than that. He wouldn't allow it.

And then one day an old man had walked into the Mos Eisley cantina…

The rest was history, well documented and recorded.

The first time he'd met her he'd thought she was almost babyish; the immature softness of her face had been disarming until he'd heard her barking orders. The youth had faded by the time they were stationed on Hoth. The war and the stress of losing Alderaan took its toll. She lost weight. It had made her cheekbones more pronounced, angled out her bone structure and accentuated the curves she kept concealed under standard issue clothing that was always too big for her. Instead of being merely a pretty girl, a privileged Princess from a non-existent world, she'd become a beautiful woman who downplayed her looks. It was hard to believe how young she was. Her life's experiences had balanced the scales, made her seem decades older than she was at times, more mature than the wizened people who surrounded her. But that was merely Leia's outer surface, all part of her job.

For a long time he thought she'd end up like Xaverri – she and the illusionist were actually a lot alike: strong, determined, nursing wounds by the Empire so deep that only their commitment to destroying it had provided enough of a catharsis for them to go on with lives. But whereas Xaverri had been content to spend her life on a solitary path, Leia was like a hatchling that'd been taken from her cell that day, and latched on to the first two faces she saw with a devotion that baffled those outside their circle. They were her support system behind the scenes.

Their tempers clashed unremittingly. Their arguments rang of the stereotypical verbal foreplay that made holo-romances so popular, where the heroine hated the hero, yet melted at his touch, where the _I hate yous _meant _I'm trying not to care and it's not working_. He'd stopped trying to convince himself then that there was anything wrong with being attracted to her, that it was pent up sexual frustration and nothing more, that being torn between killing her and plotting ways to rip her clothes off was the combined product of an overactive imagination and her infinite supply of sarcastic barbs goading him on.

People fell in and out of love everyday, every second. It sneaked up on you. They were no different.

And still... after everything they'd been through he never would have expected her to hurt him this way. That was the thing, like he'd told her. Her miscarriage robbed him of any right to be angry, robbed him of the right to hate her, and turned an act of indiscretion into a greater indiscretion that hurt in a hundred ways he hadn't expected.

Even if she insisted she didn't love him, whoever _he _was...

It was a tinny, hollow relief to hear her say it again. Deep down he'd been hoping, and although she'd said there wasn't anyone else before, when she'd said it she'd been distraught, liable to say anything to keep him from going.

So Han lay sprawled on the cough, trying to forget, for the moment, pretty much _everything_, and drinking a bottle of TGM Protein Fruit Concentrate Refresher, though he was wondering why they wouldn't merely have given it a catchy name, like Fruit Blast or something. Then he was wondering what sort of fruit it contained, but TransGalMeg Industries was apparently more concerned with splashing the company logo over the side of the bottle than listing ingredients. Footsteps padding into the dimly lit hold jarred him from his preoccupation with liquidated fruit.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "I thought you were in your cabin."

He glanced up. Her hair was unbraided and hanging in loose waves, her shirt was un-tucked. A fluffy thermal blanket was draped over her shoulders, trailing behind her on the floor. "Can't sleep?"

"I thought you hated that stuff."

"This?" He held up the bottle. "I hate the advertising. From time to time I set my hatred of the big corporation aside… if it's cheap."

"Huh."

He obliquely tipped the bottle her way, pleasantly asked, "Did you want some?"

She canted her chin warily. "You don't want any more?"

It was his fault she was eyeing him as though he might bite, and his chance to start to acting like a human being again. "You can have the rest of it. I'll even…" He repositioned his frame so that he wasn't hogging the entire couch. "I'll even make room for you."

"Okay." Ever the princess, she gracefully moved over to the couch and arranged herself so that their legs didn't touch. "How soon until we drop out and check for Harkness?"

Considering their exchange earlier and what they'd seen today, she was remarkably subdued. He passed his drink to her. "A few hours. You all right?"

"Yes…I don't know." She took a sip, washed her indecisiveness down. "I'm worried about Luke."

"Me too," he said, though he doubted they were worried for the same reasons.

"I keep thinking about all that Sarin told us, in relation to what I could feel inside the cell block. Whatever happened to Luke, compelled him to do what he did…but how could something make him do something so awful? I'm missing something or I don't understand."

"They didn't attack him. That's what the two men who made it keep saying. And if they're lying the audio is backing them up. He says he can't remember..."

"If he'd consciously surrendered to the Dark side he should remember – he has in the past, when he faced our fath-" She corrected herself quickly. "Vader, the Emperor."

_The Dark side_, Han thought bleakly. The all potent antithesis of the equally mystifying Light side, which he'd stopped believing was a figment of an ancient religious cult. The way Luke described it, it was like a highly addictive drug, where emotions triggered relapses, except most beings were immune to it. Offhand, he pictured the equipment from the labs. "You said it looked like one of the things they were working on down there was mind control."

"Yes."

Not all too sure what he was getting at, save that he was opening a bag of crackpot theories, he went on. "Interesting coincidence, considering that you seem to think your brother was possessed."

Her eyes widened. "I see where you're going with this train of thought and it's crazy."

Nodding cheerfully, he said, "Thank you for stopping me. I was beginning to think I was…"

"Or…" She knit her brows together. "Or maybe you're actually on to something."

"I said it was crazy. It really is." He swiped the bottle from her hands. "There's gotta be reason they don't list the ingredients. I think it's spiked."

"No, Han. Wait. It might not be crazy. I don't know how all of this works. I don't understand how Anakin Skywalker could appear to me when he was dead, how Luke hears Ben… how Sarin could claim that the Emperor's death was purely physical. What if… what if that was something his scientists were working on?"

"We're talking about brainwashing Jedi and controlling them?"

"Hypothetically speaking, let's say they were, or no… Not hypothetically speaking," she amended. "What was Palpatine's primary objective while he was Emperor?"

That was simple. "He wanted to control the universe, to create his own private oligarchy."

"Precisely. And Palpatine destroyed what he couldn't control, entire races and planets. Look at Flax and Ghorman, Camaasi, Yinchor, Ralltir…"

_Alderaan_…

Neither one said it.

"He spent years trying to brainwash semi-sentient species, working on his pathogen-based loyalty enhancement project."

He vaguely remembered hearing about it. "The one where he was going to unleash diseases on rebellious worlds that only the Empire had a cure for? His, 'oh, look, we'll come to save the day and you'll thank us'. "

"That one," she answered grimly. "They tried to test it at Sedesia."

"Rings a bell." More recently there were rumors that Warlord Zsinj was dipping his greedy paws into Palpatine's archives and recycling a few discarded projects. In most of the projects _subject _was synonymous with _expendable_.

"He couldn't control the Jedi so he destroyed them, but that doesn't mean he didn't try and find a way to do it along the way."

"Hypothetically speaking, if he did try he wasn't here doing it. He never stayed any one place long enough."

"He would have needed someone who could do his dirty work," Leia murmured excitedly. "Definitely a Jedi, a… dark Jedi. Han it does make sense. Sarin told us that whatever it was… that his reference to Palpatine was the answer and there is some type of residual evil down there…What if it worked? What if they succeeded?" She clutched at his hand. "That could be it. Don't you see?"

"You mean whatever was down there was capable of controlling a living person?"

"Yes."

"A living person being the operative word here," he reminded her. "Because if anything you're saying is true whatever it is, it's more powerful than Ben Kenobi. Because according to you Sarin told you he was dead. We'd be talking about a ghost here, right?"

"Yes." Her fingers wound their way through his and she shifted closer. "Let me ask you this. Do you believe Luke consciously killed them? Do you believe he could have done it?"

From the bottom of his heart he wanted to say _no_, he really did, but he couldn't. "He… seemed genuinely confused when I saw him," he admitted. There was too much hope in her eyes, and her hand was squeezing his as though it sought a measure of reassurance. "Leia, we both want there to be some rosy hued version of the events, some straightforward reason that exonerates your brother but we're stretching the limits. If a man drink himself into a stupor and kills another man, or an Arconan devours a bottle of salt and kills another Arconan, or a Lynuesi male breaks taboo and tries to make love to a human female, knowing it'll kill her, it's still murder, even if they black out, even if they got carried away. Just because he's a Jedi-"

"This is different and you saw him," she pleaded. "You saw him and you _knew _him. We went back to make sure he hadn't hurt anyone. He _didn't._" Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. "He feels responsible, and yes he is, for an error in judgment, for not heeding a warning, but not for me…"

"Don't say not for those men," he warned.

"I wasn't going to," she mumbled. "But at least concede that this might not be entirely implausible, that whatever was down there was able to influence him, control him. Let's not forget that I couldn't sense him for over a week. It was as if he were gone."

He sighed and stretched his arm out behind her. "Look, I know Luke has visions and hears voices but… corporeal _possession_?"

She dropped her voice to a whisper. "I don't know how I wandered so far away from where we were camped, Han. I don't remember doing it. I almost crippled myself walking barefoot over the touch-knots and then it was choking me. I couldn't breathe..."

"You didn't tell me that part before. You just said…" _Well that you heard voices too_… "That you injured yourself. Your feet."

"I thought that was it," she added dully. "My point being it was that strong and all of Luke's senses told him it didn't exist. He couldn't pick up any trace of it. It was Sarin who intervened, not Luke, but I never had the chance to tell him. Now…" She sagged against the back of the couch. "Now he's gone and I can't."

He had to ask. "Are you sure what you felt in your nightmare wasn't psychosomatic? You're prone to pretty intense dreams."

"Not like that. It hurt to swallow for two days," she replied, releasing him and slipping her hand beneath her blanket. "I didn't tell Luke that. I was never sure if he believed me, and then…"

"Then you found Sarin…"

"Yes." She closed her eyes. "All right. Maybe I'm grasping at thin air. I don't know. But he's my brother."

"I know." He set his drink on the floor. The request he'd been dreading since they left Baskarn's orbit hung between them, except now a million other concerns swathed a trail through logical refusals. "Leia what if it's still controlling him? Luke wanted to be left alone, and if you ask me a mentally unstable Jedi is someone I'd prefer to steer clear of."

"Mentally unstable," she repeated tentatively. "How do you mean?"

"He seemed out of it when I saw him, lost. I didn't want to upset you so I didn't mention it."

Leia's lovely features smoothed over inner turmoil. Her voice remained confident. "He feels guilty and he's scared. If he's on the edge we have to find him before it's too late."

The morbid implication needed no elaboration. If a doorsill existed and the galaxy's only Jedi stood with one foot on either side, Leia, the New Republic - everything they'd worked for over the past few years might be in jeopardy. Coruscant and the perils there would be the least of his worries. "Maybe," he heard himself say, "but only after we meet with Harkness. We do that first."

Her response was to fling herself across the couch and wreathe her arms about his neck. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

The impetuous gratitude, accidental affection completely caught him off guard. He was too worn out to not welcome her. Maybe their shouting match earlier had purged him of the need to say certain things. Maybe the idea of losing Leia, of how close he'd been to losing her with the way they'd left things, what he'd seen today… She hugged him hard enough to wind him, though at the same time he was conscious of her body feeling very soft and very fragile, more so than he remembered.

He waited for her to release him, thought about letting go but didn't do it, because he didn't want to, then clasped his hands together along her back so that she couldn't. An unfamiliar sting burned his eyes and nose but he caught himself. She stiffened awkwardly and tried to pull back. Not wanting her to see his face, he said, "Let's just… sit still here for a minute."

_And not talk_, he entreated. _Let's not talk and screw this up and yes this is all probably crazy but_…

"Um… okay," she mumbled, shifting positions so that she was leaning more against the back of the couch than into him. Ten seconds later she stiffened again. It couldn't last. This time he let her up. To his relief she didn't look at him directly, snuggling deeper into her blanket and reclining on the far arm of the couch, letting her gaze rest on the floor.

He heard himself talking. "I uh... I uh... I _was _being a... _low-class, low-born, bastard _earlier. I lost my temper."

"I know your temper all too well, remember?" Leia looked up, winked amiably, smirking. "And to be honest I prefer it to the silent treatment."

"That right, huh?"

Looking hopeful, she set aside the gentle teasing, let out a long breath. "Are we calling a truce?"

"I think so."

"Because I'm just too tired to do this with you."

It wasn't the type of _tired _wrought by a long day, either. She was beaten and worn down, a different Leia than the one he'd been remembering, one whose defenses weren't working very well. Han was the same sort of tired too. He noticed she was rubbing her neck. "How's your headache?"

She slumped against the armrest, yawning. "Still there. It's permanent."

"Truce," he said again, and because it seemed perfectly natural for him to do so, and because he'd used to, he reached over and set his hand along the base of her neck, rubbed his thumb along her hairline.

"You don't have to do that," she said, not wasting any time or even taking a moment to enjoy it.

"I used to be good at it."

"I know."

"Then relax."

She made an _hmm _sound that sounded like 'okay'. They didn't speak again. Han massaged her neck until his fingers ached, then leaned over and discovered she'd fallen asleep. Then he picked up her up carefully, thermal blanket and all, and carried her to his quarters. She didn't stir once.


	11. Chapter 11

~Chapter 11~

The drumming of the shower droned on and on. Leia rolled over onto her stomach, stretched her arms languorously above her head and pointed her toes. The muscles from the cords of her neck down to her hamstrings bunched and released in an easy fluid motion. It was too hot beneath the covers so she flung them back. Sticking one toe in the band of her sock, she wriggled it off and then did the same to the other. She buried her head in her pillow and wondered why the showers were so darn loud.

_You can't hear the showers in the crew quarters you dummy_…

She pried open her sleep swollen eyes. Han's cabin bid her good morning. That explained the noise, though not what she was doing in here.

_We were sitting on the couch. We were sitting on the couch and you hugged him and… you must have fallen asleep. You must have fallen asleep and he put you in here and_…

She remembered what she'd been thinking, right before she drifted off too, and slipped her palms furtively over the sheets. They weren't suspiciously warm enough to reveal whether or not she'd slept in the bed alone unless Han had been up for a while, nor did she sincerely believe she would slept that soundly.

The running water abruptly ended. For the next few minutes she lay still, trying hard to pretend she was sound asleep, listening to the sound of him rustling through his closet and mumbling under his breath. She thought she'd fooled him, until he unexpectedly declared there was enough heated water left for her to take a shower – not a marathon or anything, but a rinse off.

A new peek revealed a wet-headed Han, wearing a faded pair of grey pants and one his favourite worn white shirts. It was one wash away from the recycler, fit only for bumming around in or second-hand pyjamas. His boots were dangling in one hand. _I used to wear that to sleep in_, she thought. _It's mine_. "Thanks."

"Sorry if I woke you."

"You didn't," she lied.

"And… uh… I'm gonna go find something to eat. Are you hungry? I'm hungry. You want breakfast?"

"Sure."

"In that case..." He grinned. "Good morning then. Hurry up."

She washed her hair and lingered in the shower until the water grew tepid, not sure what was going on save that he was being strangely nice or polite. Everything had shifted, taken a turn while she was asleep. They'd struck a verbal truce, though she hadn't been expecting this much of a change in him. Or, it occurred to her next, maybe the topic of possession had invoked a _new _Han, an alter ego. Towelling her hair off the best she could and leaving it down so it could air dry, she dressed and headed for the galley. The aroma of caf brewing reached her nostrils before she was halfway there.

All of Han's ship time quirks came flooding back to her. Anything longer than a four hour nap qualified as a night's sleep. The first meal he made when he woke up was always called _breakfast_, though more often than not it was mixed up rations or dinner. Along with the meal he always made a bitter concoction known as Corellian caf, an acquired taste in her opinion, but her taste buds had long grown accustomed to it.

True to form, Han was sitting at the hologram table, using his teeth to tear the wrapping off packages of nutricake. It was standard ship's fare, healthy if not all that exciting. "I forgot to mention we're short on fresh supplies," he said, freeing one cake. "Next port we stop in we'll have to do some shopping or we'll be digging through the survival packs for rations."

She slid into the booth, took a deep breath to quell a wave of nausea, and wondered how long it would be before the mention of survival pack rations didn't produce an instantaneous and unpleasant physical reaction. "I'll put it on my list of things to remind you about."

"We dropped out of hyperspace while you were asleep. I sent off a message to Harkness. Hopefully when we drop out again he'll have answered."

"Okay."

"After that we'll start worrying about where your brother might be."

She opted to save her ideas for later. "Okay."

"And I've gotta put the sensors back the way they were."

"Okay."

"And there's a few other repairs I've been putting off I should get to work on."

"Okay," she said again. This was all so logistical.

He drained the last of his caf, eyed her empty hands. "How rude of me? Would you like some caf?" The invitation was accompanied by the first genuine, trademark Han Solo smile she'd seen in... Well, four months. Before she could protest Han was off fetching a second mug.

Leia thanked him and hunched over her mug, inhaled the rising steam. Nonchalantly she asked, "Did you sleep well?"

"Like a rock. You know me…" He scratched the back of his head. "Except that couch is way too short and that cabin _is _freezing."

She stifled a smirk at the vision of Han playing musical beds. "Sorry. I could have slept on the couch."

"Another thing to fix," he grumbled absentmindedly. "Add it to our list." Then he smiled again. "But first let's have breakfast. I don't do fixings on an empty stomach." 

The amiable mood remained all day. It wasn't her imagination or wishful thinking. Either Han had locked his green-eyed beast away and cooled off enough to digest what she'd told him, or he was making a sincere attempt to establish a sort of working status quo. He hand delivered his tool case to her when she started on the heater, popped by to ask if she'd mind if he finished off the pot of caf, and popped in a few minutes later to ask if she wanted any more nutricake. There was even an occasional amplified whistle echoing from the hold.

She was grateful for the mundane task, grateful for anything to keep her mind off Luke, lest her worries spiral down into the vacuum of uncertainties that was hollowing out her insides. There was nothing they could do until they found him. Accepting that was the only thing she could do, along with hope and remain receptive to him in case he reached out to her. Increasingly, she was certain they were on the right track. Half forgotten memories rushed her mind simultaneously. On Mimban Luke had battled Vader, defying all odds, without any formal training, and won. _I'm Ben Kenobi_, he had chanted, taunting and teasing. She'd been injured and on the verge of unconsciousness, but she remembered hearing him say it. He told her she'd imagined it and until recently she really thought she had. Now she wasn't so sure…

The umpteenth time Captain Congeniality wandered by she had just coaxed the vent to resume its natural hum. The _Falcon_, like all ships, had a sophisticated air filtration system that constantly recycled the air they breathed. Without it, the ship would become toxic within a standard week, ripe with carbon dioxide and all the dust and debris that found its way on board. Purified air and oxygen, as well as a small amount of decontaminants, were continuously pumped throughout the ship. The catch was the intake ducts had filters that needed to be cleaned regularly. The duct inside the crew cabin was clogged with what looked like a miniature Wookiee whose fur sported bits and pieces of human hair, microfibers, dirt, bilge and clumps of mucky stuff she couldn't identify. He asked how it was going.

"I think it's fixed," she replied, holding her hand over the vent. The current of air was steady and warming. Through the loose strands of hair shielding her eyes, she could see him smiling privately to himself in the doorway as he watched her. If he knew she could see him, he seemed unconcerned.

"That's too bad," he murmured.

_What's too bad_? His sleeves were rolled up in a lopsided fashion, one above the elbow, one below. He was barefoot. His hair was mussed and sticking out to one side, refusing repeated orders to stay tucked behind his ear. There was something disarming and comforting about seeing him so utterly himself, about being able to see his forearms and feet with their fading tan. She liked his arms. "You should keep the filters cleaned," she reminded him, trying to sound stern. "Haven't you ever heard the story about the pilot-"

The grin broadened. "Ahh… the Slovenly Pilot."

"Who went to sleep-"

"You forgot the part about the lice."

"Who-"

"And glow-in-the dark fungus."

She giggled. They'd been through this before, eons ago. They'd both been addicted to the Star Pilot series for children when they were growing up. Often the stories were hokey and absurd. Occasionally they were downright morbid. Han could do a wicked imitation of the 'narrator,' who catalogued the many final demises of careless pilots who brought foreign materials on-board without screening them, ignored sensor readings and coronal flare warnings, or who decided to make the jump to lightspeed without waiting for coordinates. (That particular story _never _ended well.)

He did it now, in deep baritone, promptly. "If you have a headache, remember that nap you take may be your last if you don't run the air quality containment test. Captain Mack forgot, and now his ship is forever lost. _Don't _let it happen to you."

"Aha," she teased. "Your memory works! You sound like you actually learned something."

"They were 'educational' enough."

"Then you should remember to keep your ducts cleaned," she advised.

He gave her a half salute. "Yes, Sir! Granted, it's just one duct out of ten. All the others are shipshape. I already checked."

"Good." Naturally, he'd inspected and cleaned nine in the time it had taken her to clean one. She added lowly ship's maintenance worker to the myriad of possible careers he'd had before they met. "How are the sensors?"

"Back to normal."

_And _he'd managed to reset the sensors. "Umm… so what else needs work?"

"You notice anything?"

_Sure_, she thought, _our fragmented relationship needs a filter the size of the Maw_. She smiled sweetly, turned her chin to her shoulder. "You're the Captain, you tell me."

"That's right I am," he murmured impishly, as though the thought would never have occurred to him on his own. "In that case…I dunno..." He rubbed his chin, flashed his white teeth and eyed the bunk. "I'm bored."

_He didn't do that_! She skirted another glance at him. He was definitely going from her to the bunk. "You're bored," she repeated, trying to sound disinterested. _No, you are NOT going to ask him what he had mind…not after yesterday, not because he's decided to temporarily stop acting like a Gamorrean_… "You have two hands and you're prehensile. I'm sure you can find some way to amuse yourself."

If she didn't _hear _it come out of her mouth she would never have believed she'd said it. Han was laughing so hard he was using to the doorframe to keep from collapsing.

_Oh, Leia_… Save that she had been picturing him playing Dejarik alone, she had no idea how it had come out sounding that way. Flustered, she packed up the remaining tools in their case and flipped the security clasps down. She didn't dare look at him lest she burst out laughing too. The floor creaked behind her.

His laughter had dissolved into low chuckles and gravelly throat clearing. "You forgot this."

A sonic screwdriver dangled in her peripheral vision. She took it without touching his fingers, kept her head down and re-opened the tool case, put it away and closed it again. "Then I guess I'm finished here."

"Uh huh."

"Since it's working." She sank back on her heels and crossed her arms over her chest, panicking and no longer finding the exchange quite so funny. The weight of her hair was magically lifting away from the back of her neck. There was definitely a mouth near her skin, a warm breath settling on her neck so gently the air scuttling from the heater felt harsh in comparison. _What's he doing? What's he doing_? "Um... Seriously, what else needs to be taken care of?"

"Nothing that can't wait until later."

Whatever invitation was intended to accompany the comment, she struggled to ignore it and talk her way around it. "I'd rather get everything done now."

"Right," he returned.

Her next sentence never made it past a thought.

Any of the myriad of species who referred to humanoid pre-mating practices as among the most boring and limited in the galaxy had never seen Han Solo in action. Next she felt his body leaning into hers. His tongue, mouth and teeth continued their journey around the back of her neck, to the curve of her shoulder. One of his hands settled on her thigh, pushing down, and with his weight pressing against her back she was on the verge of tipping forward onto the tool box.

It was electrical. It was akin to having the wind knocked out of her.

Han murmured, "Mmhmm…" in the same moment she heard herself gasp. The breath she'd been holding came with it, along with the one word hanging frozen in her mind. "Don't."

"Don't what?" The hand on her thigh grew bolder.

All she could think was that this was all terribly wrong. She didn't know how they'd gotten from the scene in the cockpit yesterday to this. It wasn't fair and it wasn't supposed to happen this way. "Han, I want you to stop."

"Why?"

"Because if you don't I'm going to turn around and knee you so hard that whether or not you're bored is going to be the least of your worries."

Jerking away stiffly, he snapped, "Then go."

She fled without looking back. 

_It's One-Eye. A good friend and I will be in your sector for three  
days pending repairs to my ship. Try The Pit_.

Harkness had sent Han a cryptic message via subspace radio on a rarely used standard clear frequency, forwarded through fifty different receivers to prevent it from being traced. It had been a one time only audio recording. A little detective work and sound reasoning dismissed his repair choice as the Berea system or anywhere the formidable Derilyn Space patrol frequented. The only 'Pit' in the entertainment advertisements had been listed on Elrood in the main starport.

Now Han's attention was focused on the looming blue and green planet rapidly eating up the view. Stray thoughts were flung to the stars. Since the fiasco in the crew quarters Leia had gone into seclusion, no small feat in two hundred square meters of space. There hadn't been a peep from her when they dropped out of hyperspace, though he was fairly certain he'd heard the showers running. She wasn't going to like this. The punch line was coming, whenever she sauntered in to find out their new destination, which if his ears were hearing correctly, was right about now. He regarded the console screen as though it were a long lost friend in need of advice. "You try to be nice, and look what happens. They bite, you bite, and they bite back harder."

"Who bites?"

"Sorry, they use knees actually, or they threaten to. Put it up there with the old classic, 'I've heard a well-aimed stun blast has some rather unpleasant side effects'."

"That's not classic, it's downright rude."

"Compared to a few more chilling ones I've heard from folks who wanted me to die slowly it's a breath away from upper class mannerisms."

"I'm glad I haven't spent too much time in your shoes," she replied, sliding into Chewie's seat.

He thought he heard her add _or pants _under her breath. A glance sideways confirmed that she had indeed showered and changed. Her hair was knotted back in a wet pile, soaking through the collar of her shirt. _Great, I touch her and she scrubs it off as though I were Jabba_. "A sudden preoccupation with cleanliness?" he asked briskly.

She wrinkled her nose and peered straight ahead. "You didn't see what was in that filter. It was gross. I give up. We haven't cleared the sector and I felt us decelerate. Where are we?"

"Elrood System." Following her lead, Han decided to pretend nothing had happened too. "I heard from Harkness."

"And?"

"We're meeting him."

"And if we're in the Elrood system this must be…" Her expression hardened. "That's not Elrood we're coming up on, is it?"

"Congratulations. You win the evening's prize."

She gripped the armrests and shook her head. "_This _is where Harkness wants to meet us?"

"Yes, and we're already on our approach vector," he declared, as though approach vectors were unalterable and there was no help for them now.

"Look, I don't give a damn how well you know this guy or how trustworthy he is-"

"He's very trustworthy."

"- Elrood is still under Imperial control and one of the remnant hotspots. They still refer to the New Republic as the Rebellion and the Rebellion as dreamers. We'll be picked up as soon as we land, thrown in a holding cell, and turned over to whatever despot arrives first to haul us in and win a promotion. Your friend must have some sort of death wish he wants to extend to us."

He shrugged in defiance and picked up a dog-eared hyperdrive manual, began flipping through the pages in search of nothing more than a way to delay arguing. "This isn't open to debate. We have to meet Harkness-"

"This _is _open to debate and there is only one alternative. You tell him to meet us somewhere else!"

"I'm the captain, remember." For good measure, he added, "Those were your words not more than a few hours ago."

"Then consider this a direct order from one of your superiors."

"Hmm." He pretended to think it over to spite her. "Nope. There are a few flaws in your thinking here, the least of all being that you're on _my_ ship." He waved a finger in the air for emphasis. "The second being that currently, we are not working for the New Republic. Got it? Besides, if Harkness could make it down we can too. I've got it all figured out."

"Oh… that reassures me," she muttered sarcastically, slapping her balled fist against her thigh and beseeching the walls over her head. "He's a got a plan to get us through an Imperial checkpoint. I'm supposed to feel better…"

"Is there an invisible council over there?"

"This isn't funny!" she wailed with increasing worry. "I hate to break the news to you but your track record for _I've got it all figured out _isn't that exemplary. If they identify us-"

"It'll work. I promise. I have fake credentials for myself, a fake transponder for the _Falcon_. I'll rig it up and dummy the logs-"

"That leaves me!"

He nearly fidgeted. "Right. That leaves you."

"So I what, stuff myself in a smuggling compartment and hope I don't run out of oxygen while you go meet with him?"

It wasn't such a bad idea except for Elrood Starport Command's anal retentiveness when it came to regulations and details. They would inspect ever nook and cranny of the ship upon arrival and fumigate it to kill any bacteria or vermin. "It'll be hazardous to your health to remain on board. There's another way."

"Which is what?"

He reached over and keyed a few entries into her console and pulled up the Sector Spacer's Guide. "Read this and no, it's not a joke."

Leia read aloud. "Among Elrood's many industries are the Elrood Quarry Corporation, Ganrite Shipyards Incorporated, Radell Mining, Delat Personal Electronics, Torina Electronics Limited, Imperial Mining-"

"Not the stock and trade pages. Further down."

"Hmm…" She switched to an exaggerated impersonation of a travel agent. "The ocean climate of the port city of Elraden is described as -"

"Holidays," Han clarified. "Get to the part about their holidays."

"Going, going…" She read the rest in silence.

What she was learning was that this month Elrood's two moons, Sharene and Lodos, had orbits that brought them very close to one another. From the surface it appeared a person could stand on one and touch the other. Local mythology had it that the two were gods who had been separated by a curse thousands of years ago. Elraden hosted a festival in honour of their coming together and it was considered good luck to be married there. The period even had name; it was called 'The Lover's Embrace'.

"What it doesn't say," Han went on, after ascertaining that he'd waited long enough for her to read it herself, "is that the planet offers unofficial amnesty to lovers - particularly wayward lovers seeking refuge; they also permit forms of Intergalactic entertainment without the usual checks. It's very bad luck for them to turn anyone away."

She glanced up from the screen and rolled her eyes. "Nice try Solo. But it's reckless and more of a gamble than we can afford."

"I'm serious. The condition was that we find him first, _and then _look for Luke. We can float around aimlessly in space and waste time until it's convenient for him to meet us at another location or get it over and done with. All we have to do is pretend to be… _happy _- not ourselves happy but _inconspicuous _happy lovers - and we're in. No checks, no, 'hey, you're on our most wanted list.'"

"Yeah, well…" Sullenly sinking against the back of her seat and frowning, she said, "I see the irony."

"I figured you would."

"Han-"

"Forget it," he grunted, though he wasn't about to forget. There'd definitely been an opening and he'd taken it. Or, he'd _thought _there was an opening. It wasn't necessarily the brightest litmus test to gage anything by – he wasn't even sure why he'd done it. He just had. Now she would drag out her worn professional and frigid persona for fresh visit. Just like old times, where relationships were regarded as floating liabilities. Or, he considered, this might be something new and equally awful. He wasn't looking forward to it one bit. Animosity coloured his tone. "Even a guy like me has had some experience with being shot down and you're rather proficient at it."

"It's _not _like that at all."

"You were speaking another language then? It just _sounded _like what I heard you say."

"Fine then. That was... uncalled for, I suppose. You have my apology. But the fact is you can't expect to be nice for half a day and have everything to miraculously go away. Life doesn't work that way. I don't work that way."

"I didn't think it was going to make everything go away."

"Then what were you thinking?"

He almost said, _I have a weakness for women who work with tools_, and then he almost said _you were flirting_. Plus she'd looked, well… _enticing _with her head buried in the duct shaft and then they'd been laughing. He ended up settling for the requisite, "I don't know." He really didn't anymore because in all honestly he shouldn't have expected her to react any differently.

"In case it hasn't occurred to you yet, after all these months we can't pick up where we left off. Not because you snap your fingers and say so. We spent two years with a referee that was the nearest two meter horizontal surface-"

_That was your favourite referee too_, he accused silently.

"- But this isn't a giant argument. It's not… I'm…" Her voice caught. "I'm happy you're here. I'm grateful. I'm so grateful that I probably… I'm confused and I can barely figure out what I'm feeling from one minute to the next and…" She'd wrung her hands together so fiercely that the tips of her fingers were red. She let go and turned sideways in the chair so that they were facing each other. "I'm _confused_. I know no one would race from one sector to another, spend five days cloistered in the medcenter and every second after making sure someone was safe just because they had nothing better to do. I said I knew you cared yesterday and I _do_…"

He took the hint. "Leia, I _do _care."

"But you've acted like we were complete strangers for the past two weeks – as though you couldn't stand being in the same room with me and whenever you've been nice afterwards you act as though you slipped up, have an internal struggle and I end up bearing the brunt of it."

All too true. There was little to say in his defense.

"So forgive me if your abrupt change of heart is being greeted with skepticism. I don't know if we're a _we _or a _maybe _or… a _moment _you're having but I can't handle going to bed with you and having you wake up and tell me it was a big mistake. And you can't use going to bed with me as a way to vaporize recent history or what happened when you left."

"Why not?" he started to say, but he was listening to the way she said _you left_. It lacked accusation, lacked blame, but the unalleviated hurt was crystalline clear. Unprovoked guilt backslapped him, followed by exasperation. Women were so damn impossible, claiming to be confused and managing to sound perfectly rational at the same time. He wondered how long she'd spent preparing this little speech. "Leia, about that-"

"We…" She sighed. "We needed a break from one another and we got one. Whatever it was. I know we haven't dug that far beneath the pile and frankly I can't handle that right now either." A tentative smile materialized. "But I like you being nice… I don't want you to stop. Last night… last night, feeling like I could actually talk to you was…"

His disposition softened. "Good."

"Yeah. That _was _good."

He reached over and cupped her cheek, cursing his glove. Honesty, even brutal honesty from Leia was a step forward. "There's plenty more talking where that came from, Sweetheart."

"I know."

An unspoken victory was his, and he knew it. He couldn't resist. "An inexhaustible supply," he added, patting his knee. "You could come over here and find out."

"Um…" Releasing her clenched fingers, she squirmed to the furthest side of the co-pilot's chair and out of reach. "Maybe you should concentrate on telling me what this plan of yours involves?"

He accepted defeat with a straight face. "We claim your father's hunting us down… say if he finds us all hell will break loose, that we're eloping. They hear it all the time. They'll let you in without running you through the system."

The tiniest flicker of amusement lifted the corner of her mouth. "Is this another one of your inspiration's my specialty routines?"

"I'm not famous for those for nothing."

"What if they don't go for it?"

"Have a little faith," he hastened. "And maybe wear your hair down – you'll look like you're barely over the age of consent…" He appraised the fatigues and old leather vest, combat boots. "And find something a little more appropriate to wear."

"Appropriate?"

"Appropriate," he repeated.

"As in less is better?"

He shrugged. "I didn't say it, you did. Never hurts to distract the guards."

The _Falcon _was converted to the _Merry Nashtah _and he was respectably dressed long before the subspace radio static began picking up clips of the Elroodian Planetary Communication Net. He played with the frequencies until he found traffic control, and grumbled to himself about the impending inspection by starport control if his Authority Waiver was rejected. He hoped that they'd stopped the mandatory fumigation rules for all ships. The fruity smell lingered for days.

A female voice gave them landing clearance codes and a docking number, curtly reminding them to remain on board until an agent arrived to inspect the ship.

"The ship's being inspected? I thought you said this would be piece of cake," she complained as she entered the cockpit.

"It will. You just need to play along when we go through customs." He spun around to make a leisurely appraisal. She wore a sleeveless gown of green Saava silk, gathered at each shoulder with Kelsh clasps and slit knee high along the outside of each leg. It had been worn last year to the celebratory dinner on Mrlsst, after her diplomatic assignment had led to their official pledge of allegiance to the New Republic. Her hair hung in long waves and there was a modest amount of cleavage showing but she still wore her combat boots. "You'll do."

"I couldn't find any other shoes," she said self-consciously, drawing up the filmy transparent shawl that came with the dress. It didn't cover much. "And it was this or diplomatic robes."

"Nah. You look like you belong in a…university or something. One of those girls who mixes her thousand credit dresses with second hand stuff to how show she's against the upper class snobbery. It should flow with our cover perfectly."

"Maybe I should grab a jacket."

"Uh huh," he murmured, turning back to Elrood Starport as they manoeuvred overhead until he sighted the main docking bay and hit the reverse thrusters. The _Falcon_ settled on Landing Pad 14. He turned off the engines. He was anxious about getting them through. Despite his assurances to Leia earlier, the more of a distraction she provided, the better. "Did I mention it's summer here?"

Backing away from him, she tightened her shoulders and sighed uncomfortably.

The receiver lights flashed red. He keyed the comm. "Captain Sal. No cargo to declare. Standing by."

"Welcome to Elrood, Captain", an automated voice replied. "Please open your hatches and descend to meet with an agent." 

She was already frowning. "I have a very bad feeling about this."

"Hey… would you try and look happy at least. You're supposed to be here on a romantic vacation. And now it's too late to take off without looking suspicious and having their tractor beam nab us."

"All I can say is this had better work, Han."

"It's Captain _Nalo Sal _to you until we're cleared," he replied firmly, holding out his arm. "Who do you want to be?" 

Blessedly it was one of those rare occasions when Han's plans worked like a charm. Leia had to hand it to him. Her initial impression of the Elrood Starport was a gigantic ship's prison. Duracrete walls over fifty meters high sectioned off the docking bays and blocked their view of the adjoining city of Elraden and the main starport. The Imperial Customs officers wheeled their processing stations from vessel to vessel, effectively holding their passengers hostage until they'd been approved. Should a wayward traveler decide to make a dash for it out of the hanger, several squadrons of black armoured stormtroopers patrolled the exits and elongated tarmac.

Despite the breathable fabric, sweat was trickling down her back as they approached. Han slung their bag nonchalantly over his shoulder as though he didn't have a care in the world, though she knew he was probably hoping his forged I.D. and Imperial Sanction card hadn't expired, or that the forger who'd sold them to him hadn't made duplicates. They did that sometimes, to double their profit, but if two separate individuals popped up in their files with the same number, it meant immediate detainment.

The Imperial customs officer gave them a once over and asked if they were visiting to join in the celebrations or part of the entertainment circuit. As soon as Han began delivering his fabricated tale, the officer threw up his hands, told them he'd heard it all and wasn't a krillhead. Leia squished her palm against his, excruciatingly aware of the palm pads and retinal scanners at his station. Then the officer did a perimeter check, making sure no other security personnel were within earshot, and told them if they wanted to be processed expediently it would cost three hundred credits. For a bonus two hundred, he could even be persuaded there was no need to fumigate the ship, as long as the _proties _(Elroodian slang for droids) came up with no traces of spice. During the celebrations, he explained, the influx of spice was their number one priority. Other than that he didn't give a whit what they were up to.

Minus five hundred Imperial credits, they were safely on their way and wandering through the main strip of the starport. As far as starports went, Elrood's own facility would have qualified for the Imperial Space Ministry's Stellar Class Award. One could purchase basics, hire extra crew, order a full maintenance check of any or all systems - all while lounging in one of the ubiquitous Spacer's planetside lodging facilities.

Han hated it and deemed all such services to be a rip-off. Often, after an unknowing pilot checked into a hotel, the hotel would bribe the maintenance people to delay their work.

None of this interested them at the moment. They were strictly in search of Harkness's rendezvous choice, The Pit, which took Han all of two minutes to find. To Leia's relief it was a relatively upstanding bar and restaurant (despite the omnipresent prefab green decor) filled with pilots and crew taking in meals between deliveries and runs. Han ordered them both pale orange drinks which tasted of pure sugar syrup and made small talk with the humanoid barkeep. He mentioned casually he was seeking an old friend.

The overweight man, whose face was splotched with broken capillaries, compulsively cleaned his glasses and countertops and claimed he couldn't assist them in an irritating raspy voice. Leia's mental nudges encouraging him to clear his throat didn't work. Han's efforts to engage him didn't have much success either.

"I don't keep track, you know. They come they go, I see everything, and forget it all afterwards. In this business it doesn't pay to remember."

"No, it doesn't," Han agreed. "But you might remember my friend. Eye patch, with a girl – blonde, pretty, scar on one cheek." He leaned in closer. "It _might _pay to remember."

"Haven't seen him," the barkeep replied. "Not a one like that. You checked the human quarters?"

"I'm on my way there, but I was hoping he'd been through here."

"Can't help you."

"Say I'm traveling with a shag," Han added under his breath. "That ring a bell?"

The barkeep glanced at Leia, then back at Han disapprovingly. "She don't look like a shag to me."

"I mean I usually am," he clarified, draping an arm over her shoulders. "As you can see, my luck's taken a turn for the better."

_Chewie_, Leia thought, _Harkness would have expecting Han and Chewie, not you_.

"Sorry, I still can't help you." He gathered their empty glasses and dumped them on the conveyer belt. They slipped away into the sterilization unit. "Refill or something else?"

"Ahhh, sure." Han dropped a few more credits on the bar. "What do you say, Lelila?"

"We should get going, Captain Sal."

Han ignored her, picked up the menu and perused the beverage selection. "What do you have out back?"

"What are you looking for?"

"The good stuff, like…" Han named an obscenely expensive bottle of wine that wasn't on the menu.

The barkeep slapped his cleaning rag down on the counter. "I'll go see if we have any in stock."

Leia frowned at him. They'd spent five hundred credits merely to make it into the spaceport. They still needed accommodations for the night and supplies. "Are you trying to bankrupt us? Harkness could be anywhere in Elraden, if he's even here for one. Secondly this isn't low profile. _I'm usually with a shag_? Should I stick a sign on my forehead with my name and bounty? How about 'I'm usually with a brain dead Corellian who doesn't know when to keep his big mouth shut?"

Han made a shushing motion and clucked at her. "You don't know everything, sweetheart. Hang on a few more minutes."

"For what?"

"You'll see."

"Those are famous last words."

"Smile a little, will you."

The barkeep returned in short order. "Don't get many requests for this stuff in these parts. Near about as often as my memory comes back to me."

Leia engineered a furious smile as Han asked, "Really?"

"I suppose, if I was looking for someone, I might head for the Grand Plaza. The bazaar is closed for the night, but couples like to stroll and take in the ocean air by the piers." He winked. "They say it's romantic, if you're so inclined. Course I wouldn't keep referring to her as a shag if I was you and I'd keep my mouth shut. I've heard there's a few Baldavian Lip-readers hiding under the local black masks. They like to watch for interesting conversation, pick up the trouble makers before the riots start."

"Thanks," Han nodded. "We'll take that to go. How much do we owe you?"

It was near dusk when they made their way into the city. Into her hair Han murmured the rules as though she'd never been anywhere remotely multi-special. First was not to make eye contact with a species whose etiquette she was unfamiliar with. Eye contact during the Lover's Embrace – to many species - might be construed either as blatant flirtation or a form of aggression.

The second was to hold her breath when they passed anyone smoking and to avert her face if anyone tried to start a conversation. Many of the aliens smoked exotic spice so potent an accidental intake of second-hand smoke would render a humanoid instantly high. Worse, a merry reveller staggering your way might be a sober slave trader waiting to exhale a dose of hypnocane. An unfortunate victim would laugh themselves all the way to the docking bay, onto a vessel, wake up hung over and destined for parts unknown.

Leia listened and obeyed because she knew better, not because he kept lecturing her. Save Han's annoying over-protectiveness, Elrood's Lover's Embrace was fascinating to see.

The sidewalks were packed with beings arm and arm, pairs, trios and groups representing every species of the galaxy, not all of whom she recognized, many whose genders were indiscernible. Languages twittered, clucked, grunted, and growled freely. Individual musicians droned out the languages, playing lute pipes, viols, drums, tambours and windblowers. Entire bands playing jizz and sparklebop drowned out the lone performers. Everywhere visitors were holding hands, tails, tentacles, appendages. Some were dressed in elaborate costumes, some were feathered and furred and a few were bearded or barely clad. On every corner one of Elrood's numerous legal marriage centers boasted that they could perform weddings for any race, in five minutes or over five days.

The downtown of the port city bordered on the tacky and the obscene and was a circus of legal and illegal perversions. Garish lights were strung across the rooftops, aimed relentlessly onto the streets. It wasn't so much to enhance night-time visibility, Leia noted. Ultraviolet light revealed species such as the Defel who absorbed light and in daytime were no more than shadows. The flyers on the streets all advertised dinners for two or more in Basic, 'WHATEVER YOUR CRAVING', hotel specials for romantic settings, vendors selling aphrodisiacs and mementos. The outdoor theatres advertised viewings of a genuine Floubettettean dance, an avian species whose complex mating ritual was a cross between an erotic joining and an aerial ballet. For the honeymooners, there were welcome banners, ocean cruise specials, discounted rates at the spas and hotels. For the lonely at heart or thrill seekers, pleasure houses for every species, bearing flashing signs that said 'NAME YOUR SPECIES/ NAME YOUR SEX/ WE PROMISE TO SATISFY EVERY CUSTOMER', or 'LEAVE YOUR MORALS AT THE DOOR'. In smaller print, beneath the signs, they added, WEAPONS TOO. The general understanding appeared to be that in Elraden, for a few weeks each year, anything went. In her entire life Leia had never seen anything like it.

The streets swam with Teltiors and Meri, blue skinned humanoids from neighbouring systems whose distinctive webbed hands flapped as they chatted. There were Twi'leks, fondly caressing one another's leku (believed by xenosociologists to be erogenous zones), probably mating out of their respective clans. There were Ebranites, hairless Feeorins whose faces were divided by leathery folds of skin stretching beneath their eyes, nose, and mouths, and oily Weequay with varying sizes of topknots, grey skinned and reeking of foul odours only their prospective mates could appreciate. A sleek furred Selonian and a Bothan strode by them, and Han commented _there_ was match he'd never seen before. They passed a group of Rakaans, a viciously carnivorous insectile species known to regard human flesh as a delicacy. Their massive bellies tottered atop eight tiny legs, making them look like balloons on stilts. Passers-by gave them wide berth, as did they. Han proved to be his usual fountain of bizarre trivia, whispering to her that in Rakaan physiology there were five sexes, and that he no idea what these were, but that hopefully customs had forced them to drain their lower stomachs of the saliva they used to dissolve prey.

He directed her attention to a pair of H'nemtheans, gestured to the female's chrome studded muzzle sagging beneath her jaw, and explained that the by nature a H'nemthean female's sworded tongue would ritualistically eviscerate her mate the moment they consummated their relationship. Leia caught herself involuntarily gawking as they strode by, hoping the female would open her mouth so that she could glimpse the lethal weapon.

Han promptly told her not to get any grandiose ideas, that he preferred her tongue the way it was. Leia tried to kick him and wound up catching a long hard stare from a local patrolman.

When they finally reached the human quarter cultured gardens of fruit and sweet scented blossoms gave them a reprieve from the heavy clouds of spice. The presence of Elroodian Peacekeepers dwindled too. Humans were apparently trusted to govern themselves with a modem of decorum deficient in the alien population. The buildings ranged from opulent architectural wonders for the rich, to rustic retreats for the sentimental, to the standard flat roofed and dingy, basic necessities only included. The restaurants were just as varied, advertising familiar foods and fine cuisine.

Around their fifth sharp turn it occurred to her that Han knew his way around quite well indeed. There were no directions to speak of, and if he was following landmarks he was doing so effortlessly.

They made their way to the piers on the far side of the plaza, full of closed stands and strapped down awnings that would be booming come morning. The air coming in off the ocean was salty and muggy. There were dozens of other human couples enjoying the _stimulating air_, as the Spacer's Guide had put it, and the _magnificent view _of the twin moons. None fitted the description Han had given to the barkeep. They walked and watched, while Han kept an arm tightly linked through hers and leaned over ever so often to play the affectionate lover while murmuring that they probably wanted to verify who she was first, and that they would find them.

It had taken a long time for her collect her feelings and figure out what to say to him earlier.

The problem with Han was that for him the idea of her sleeping with someone else registered on _one _fundamental level. Not the most verbal man, he regarded talking as an overrated method of resolving conflict, was more inclined to act first and talk later. There'd been no warning, no way to prepare for him coming on to her. For the most part it left her feeling befuddled from tip to toe. They hadn't really talked about _them_, not like adults, not amicably.

Han's attentiveness now was strictly a shield. In public, when they were together, he was rarely affectionate, habitually on guard for danger, smuggler's instincts and too many close calls cultivating his well honed survival skills.

They passed numerous couples necking in the patchy shadows. Leia was beginning to question the sanity of marching themselves up and down the plaza as though they were on display when a man's voice called after them.

"Slick?"

Han stopped dead in his tracks and gazed back into the light of the pier lamps. _"Aliha sel valle volgoth_?"

"To see an old friend." A man with a frayed eye-patch and spiky black hair marched out of the darkness. An ice blonde dressed in billowing folds of sky blue shimmersilk joined him. She bore a jagged scar that journeyed from nose to ear. "Enjoying your stay?" the stranger asked.

"It's just as insane as I remember it and then some. You?"

"It certainly lives up to its reputation. Keep moving. Our lodging isn't far from here and it's clean."

They spoke of the weather and sights on the way to the inn while she tried to get a feel for the pair. Dirk Harkness radiated a strange mixture of lethalness and light humour, as though in the direst situation he could crack a smile and a joke. Per the bio she'd dragged out of Han (which had come about only after insisting a dozen times that if she was going to Elrood to meet with this person, she'd damn well better know more about him), he was a native of Salliche and the former Commander of the Black Curs. The Curs were a renegade outfit known for putting personal vendettas above their loyalty to the New Republic. The group had had an uncanny ability to obtain highly confidential information from sources within the Empire; that led many to believe a number of their members were double agents. Han had tried to gloss over that point, and Leia was sincerely hoping they'd been nothing more than rumours.

By the time they arrived at their accommodations the nightly festivities and parades were starting to get out of hand. Leia was grateful to be off the main streets and away from the noise. Jai grabbed a scanner from her pocket and made a thorough sweep of their two room suite and announced they were clear.

Han settled into one of the simple wooden chairs, regarding the pair inscrutably. Leia sat next to him. "So Harkness, what happened to your ship?"

Dirk made a disgruntled face. "I should've taken your advice about naming her after a woman. My fusial thrusters were blasted off line by a deuce right before we jumped. We had to get towed into Elrood Starport by Space Rescue Corps when we came out of lightspeed, hence my rotten choice of rendezvous. Not that I have anything against their imitation of Capital Season. Did you guys have any problems getting through?"

The simple question provoked a grimace. "We paid through the nose. They must make a year's salary in a week."

Regardless of Han's claims that they could trust him, Leia's heart pounded a beat faster and she started scanning the room to see if there was anything she'd missed. If the damage to his ship had been caused by a Tie-fighter, Rescue Corps _should _have alerted the authorities. In which case she doubted they would be sitting in the same room unless he'd struck some kind of deal. "How'd you explain the damage?" she asked.

Harkness didn't miss her perusal and treated her to a disconcerting one-eyed wink. "There's one benefit to being out where the Empire still is in control. Pirates have been stealing Tie-fighters for years and impersonating sector patrol. We said we were ambushed. They couldn't prove we weren't. End of the investigation."

A perfectly plausible answer, however, she still had no idea how he had happened onto any information regarding her and Luke. "Are you working for the NRI?"

"If they're reimbursing me for my repairs I am." Harkness quipped, retrieving a Bellorian ale from the bar in the corner. Everyone else declined an offer. He flipped his lid back and resumed the discussion. "This last bit was unofficial and more of an accident."

Ignoring the dirty look Han was sending her way, Leia posed innocently, "You must have a knack for infiltration?"

"More like a bad habit," Jai explained, swishing folds of her gown aside and coming to stand beside her. Harkness's companion, in contrast to his laid back ease, appeared vaguely uneasy, polite and official all at once. "Don't worry. If I thought Harkness ran both sides…"

The mercenary turned an imaginary blaster on himself. "Bang." He clutched his ale over his heart. "She would too. She's ruthless. But if you're getting at what I think you are, rest assured, we don't deal with the unfriendlies, we have plenty of information for them and they will pay well for it."

Leia felt her tension dissipate, setting two parted fingers on her knee where Han could see it, their old, _this situation checks out _sign.

"Your Highness, Princess Leia," Dirk continued. "Our apologies for the run-around bit. We needed to be sure of who you were but since you're here I'll cut to the chase. The Imperials know who you and your brother are. They know you're the offspring of Darth Vader."

_No, you don't have a choice_, she reminded herself, but she felt her throat tighten. At the back of her mind she'd thought she still had a choice, didn't she, and she was with complete strangers. It wasn't as though she were gently telling Lando or Winter, people she knew she could trust in a controlled environment. The room was deathly silent.

She realized they were waiting for her to confirm it. "Yes. Nobody knows but for a few people," she said quietly.

Dirk graciously hurried to fill the void. "Not until recently. Palpatine might have played the game unethically by murdered millions but he never feared keeping detailed records, never feared their disclosure. He had everything monitored, every meeting, all incoming and outgoing communications, even his private chambers weren't sacred. Every moment of his life was recorded and encrypted, bounced through the HoloNet frequencies to a central database. Imperial Intelligence, spearheaded by the Royal Imperial Guard, has been slicing away at the very last transmission now for years, trying to figure out what the hell happened in that throne room on the Death Star. They heard _father_. They heard _son_. They heard _sister_."

"Are you sure they've traced _sister _to Leia?" Han asked.

Harkness held out his hands mournfully. "I don't doubt she was the first person they checked out. Seeing how it was public knowledge on Alderaan that she was adopted, and she'd shown an incredible resistance to Vader in the past. All they needed was a single strand of hair, or drop of blood, skin cell to run genetic screening. They probably bribed a staff member from within your office to obtain a sample for them, and they had access to Vader's medical files to test her against. Plus if you'd heard Luke's reaction to the mention of her, you'd guess it was someone very, very close to him. To put it mildly… he went ballistic."

"We couldn't get through to you on Coruscant without breaking our cover so we went through Solo," Jai furthered. "This is the deal: The Royal Imperial Guard has contracts out on both of you, dead or alive, so high they'll bankrupt themselves trying to pay it."

Leia shuddered. "They've had a contract out on Luke for two years. That's not new."

"Except they've extended it to include you. That is new. You've only been on the Official Imperial bounty lists before."

"They may have found takers already," Han informed them. Both Jai and Dirk looked confused, so he gave a meagre sketch of the recent events, closing by gesturing to Jai. "SpecForce thinks Luke set it up and was trying to take out the base. Course, they have nothing more than circumstantial evidence and a spice-induced motive."

"Who's in charge?" Jai demanded.

"Admiral Rieekan and a guy named Ley'kel."

The blonde curled her upper lip back. "I know them. They're go getters, both of them, and I don't mean the ethical kind. They play to look good in a no win situation and they don't care if the turn innocent members of the NRI into the next Tycho Celchu as long as they can justify it in the end."

Dirk sighed thoughtfully, scratching the edge of his eye patch as though it irritated him. "This is why I didn't want to go through Intelligence. You're both too high profile, integral parts of the new government and I can't blame you for keeping this quiet. The Guard doesn't want this to go public either, because they fear if it does, you or your brother would be in a position to negotiate with a few groups who were loyal to Vader…"

"_Negotiate_?" Leia burst out. "What in the world would we negotiate for?"

Jai continued. "Palpatine had a great deal of dissention within his ranks. There were those who felt that Vader would be more effective ruling the New Order, that Palpatine was too sick and…"

Han bristled. "Are we forgetting Vader had the first project administrator on the _Death Star_ crucified and strung up for his men as incentive to get the job done… that half of the officers who reported to him had their necks broken?"

"No one would argue that Vader's crimes were heinous," Dirk pointed out. "But the thing is he carried out Palpatine's orders. He was the Messenger, the Dark Angel of Death. But believe me he was merciful compared to his master."

"I for one find that hard to believe," Han clipped. "If you ask me they were both sadists…"

Leia slashed her arm through the air. "Okay, stop. We're skipping the point here. We could spend hours detailing their crimes but I'm sure none of us wants to do that. I'm still not sure how Luke or I would use this. Why would our relationships to him invoke any sort of allegiance? Even if it did Luke would _never _use it. I would _never _use it. I want nothing to do with my father's name."

"The scenario gets a little more twisted," Jai said.

"How?"

"Are you familiar with the name Kadann?" Dirk asked.

Leia looked at Han, who was shaking his head.

"Kadann is the Supreme Prophet of the Prophets of the Dark Side. He controls most of Imperial Intelligence. About ten years ago he started predicting that Palpatine would be murdered by his servant, that both _Death Stars_ would be destroyed, that the Alliance would ultimately win. Most brushed him off as a delusional old man. As you can imagine, he garnered a fair bit of respect when these events started coming true. With Palpatine dead… well, a whole lot of people are listening to him know. His word is law. His predictions are law. His hold over the Imperial factions is absolute. He claims the stars have predetermined that your brother is to be the new leader of the re-established and victorious New Order. Faced with Kadann's prophecies the Guard is enraged at the suggestion that he be supplanted by the son of the man who killed him."

"But they don't have people on the inside," Leia countered. "Not to pull off an act of that magnitude. We've done background checks, security is tight-"

Han rubbed his temple and grunted, "Obviously not _that _tight. And Luke has a number of fair-weather admirers-"

Dirk caught on immediately. "Exactly. Someone might have come to the conclusion they'd be doing the New Republic a favour."

Han turned to her. "They only would have needed a few weak spined people who are as afraid of the Jedi as they are in awe of them. You were too young to remember the anti-Jedi propaganda the Empire put out. Little dramas that made the Jedi look like a bunch of corrupt and dirty old men. Find any nobody from a backwater world steeped in superstition and stone-age fears. They hear Jedi, they think major trouble. If the Guard leaked Kadann's prophecies and made them an offer… setting Luke up isn't the same as overthrowing the government or starting a war. These are probably people we least expected to become saboteurs."

"There are always a few rotten grotberries in the barrel," Harkness finished. "And to be honest, if you don't think the Guard was capable of pulling off the set-up you're underestimating them. I say whoever did it is in Intelligence."

Leia paused. It all made sense. "This is just great. Perfect. Basically the individuals responsible are investigating themselves?"

"It sure looks that way."

It explained a lot and made this whole mess more complicated. Intelligence's search would yield nothing. They were on their own until she contacted Airen Cracken. She said a quick prayer that he was indeed permitting the investigation to run itself as some sort of smokescreen.

"Where is Skywalker?" Dirk wondered abruptly. "If he was being investigated…"

"He's taken an AWOL vacation," Han informed them. "He left partway through the investigation on Baskarn while under house arrest and didn't tell us where he was going."

Jai frowned. "That's strange."

"Strange doesn't begin to cover it," Han commented dryly.

Leia glared at him. "We're going to find him when we leave Elrood." For good measure, lest Han actually be scheming to turn their stay here into a real vacation, she added, "_tomorrow_."

"_Tomorrow_," Han echoed, wagging a finger at her. "When did we decide that?"

"_I _decided."

Dirk chuckled and headed for a beat up leather bag in the corner. "Then you guys might want to catch up on your reading tonight, see what these Prophets are all about. Not taken to heart, Kadann's writings are actually rather poetic and entertaining, quatrains laden with references to 'the son of the Dark One taking his rightful place at the helm of destiny,' or something like that." He withdrew several datapads.

"They sound more like nightmares to me," Han mumbled.

"Ironically enough, until recently they were the Empire's nightmares, not ours. Kadann's followers treat his texts like scriptures. It's downright eerie. There are pages describing Luke's fall after some cataclysmic event that causes him to doubt himself, face his own impotence in the face of darkness."

The blood drained from Leia's face. Han choked out, "What was that?"

Harkness resumed rummaging through his bag. "What… they treat the text like scripture?"

"No, what you said after that."

"He… uh… there are pages about some cataclysmic event-"

"Can we see that?"

"Sure," he said slowly, dropping all but one datapad. "I think it's this one…um…" He activated the pad and tabbed through the viewer. "Yeah, here it is, ah… you want me to read it?"

"Yes."

"Here goes... _In darkness the chosen will awaken and see, he is not who he is nor who he claims to be. When the blood ceases to bless the ground and wilderness, he shall awaken thrice, reborn_-"

"How do these things keep happening to me?" Han complained noisily. "How?"

"This is just Kadann's prophesy. He also predicted that the first _Death Star_ would be destroyed by an asteroid."

The Corellian said, "What if I told you Luke left Baskarn on the verge of going nova - that something happened down on the surface that no one, not even Leia, can explain, that this sounds familiar to us?"

The mercenary passed the datapad over and began pacing back and forth. "Are we all talking about the same Luke Skywalker?

"Yes," Han and Leia said together.

"We didn't think any of this sludgenews was relevant."

Han did his best to detail what they knew had happened to the team, the physical and circumstantial evidence that left little doubt Luke was responsible, as well as his inability to remember. He concluded by outlining their only theory so far.

Dirk paused. "I bet the institute for Sentient Studies would commit us. I'm starting to feel like I should be committed for just having this conversation…"

"You get used to it if you hang around Skywalkers long enough," Han muttered. "But if it's true…"

It was later, standing on the patio and leaning against the rickety railing beneath the moonlight's sumac glow, trying to stave off her taciturn mood and formerly repudiated worries, that she stretched for her brother again. There was no answer. With a sigh of resignation, she conceded there was no point stressing herself out over what she couldn't control. There was nothing she could do to prevent it. It was all set in motion. What she needed to do was devise a message for Harkness to deliver to Home Fleet, on her and Han's behalf.

Jai appeared with a glass of water while she was plotting out her thoughts. "Those two have business to sort out and are hinting that I should make myself scarce. I brought you some water."

Leia puzzled over that, thanked her for the water, and then recalled that Harkness's initial message had said something about owing Han a favour. "Business?" she repeated curiously.

"Your guess is as good as mine," the woman went on, dropping her voice to a whisper. "The old smugglers are like that. I didn't even know Harkness knew Solo until a month ago."

"I can never keep track of who Han knows," she murmured, mulling that over. Han hadn't told her Harkness was a smuggler. "It's always a surprise." In fact, Han actually never told anything she didn't need to know unless it was intended to amuse her. It was annoying.

"Oh. And I remembered something else," Jai announced, squeezing her eyes shut in deep concentration. The long scar across was stark white against the flush of her cheek. "I don't know if it will help you but if it's true he has a name. It's not in the datapads. I didn't manage to copy the last one but I saw Kadann's drafts."

"Who?"

"Whoever Luke becomes. It's Niras." 

They all overlooked it at first.

After a full meal and too much thinking all Han wanted to do was sleep. They'd spent hours pouring over Kadann's gloomy writings and come up with nothing more substantial than the one passage Harkness had read to them. And more questions. In hindsight Luke's comments to him in the medcenter made terrible sense.

For instance, why did he say, _I know who I am and that I wouldn't have done_? It was so... strange.

Had it been a subliminal slip, meaning a distant part of Luke knew what had happened to him, or a lie? Had it been a lie? Furthermore, he did not want hear the term paradox again, as in, had the _Razion's Edge _not been tampered with, Kadann's visions of the future would not have been fulfilled. Luke would never have started down his 'cataclysmic path' if indeed he had. The pestering whispers in his brain kept going and going…

_Niras... Sarin._

Sarin... Niras.

His own voice startled him in the darkness. "Spell it backwards."

"What?"

"Spell Sarin backwards."

"Oh. Oh!" He heard the sound of the cot creaking. "Oh my stars, Han..."

Han turned on the couch and groped for the edge of her cot, which wasn't all that near the couch to begin with. His index finger barely grazed the metal frame. "What are we missing here?"

"I don't know," she said.

Harkness had said Kadann was hit or miss with his prophecies, on target only half the time. Han didn't care. He wasn't about to believe it. Wary of speaking too loudly, for he been able to hear Jai and Dirk's voices from their bedroom earlier, he stressed, "We must have missed something."

"But what?"

"I dunno," he murmured, wondering if Leia had been wrong about Sarin all along. What if Sarin had done something to Luke when he'd gone back for him? He didn't want to say it just yet though; she was so adamant that Sarin was _good_, that he'd saved her life. "This is all too much of a coincidence."

They traded their astonished silences and then there came a more subdued whisper. "Don't tell them tomorrow."

"I wasn't going to."

"I mean," Leia explained, "If I give Harkness a message for Madine or Cracken, I don't want this to come out in the debriefing, especially if we're not sure what we're dealing with. With everything going on the last thing we need is for them to hear about this. "

"He _wouldn't _tell them."

"Maybe not. But I'm thinking about what you said about fair-weather supporters. Let's not take the risk, okay?"

"All right."

After another protracted silence, she said, "I need a library… The catalogues on Baskarn weren't that extensive and if I find a library I could try the Yashuvhi databases in their native language. If I had Threepio…"

"Where is Threepio?" He hadn't thought to ask or wonder these past few weeks.

"With Lando."

_Better him than me_… He thought for a moment. "Well, you'll have a hard time finding a place to rent you a protocol droid. Elraden probably has a library though."

"Stang. Well that'll be better than nothing." She sighed to herself then asked, "Han, what did Harkness owe you?"

Her question distracted him from trying to envision her face in the darkness. He'd known she would ask that, gave his pre-planned response. "It's one of those gentleman's agreements, over and done with."

"Oh. But you've been here before though right? You know your way around – unless you memorized the city grids beforehand."

He smiled to himself. It was good it was dark in here after all. "Yes, I have."

"Well, when?"

"Seven… no eight years ago."

"What were you doing?"

"You mean do I have any quickie weddings and annulments in my past?" He pictured her pouting. "It's not what your hyperactive imagination is probably conjuring up. I strictly worked the entertainment set."

"_You _worked the-"

"Pilot for a magician. This was her biggest show of the year."

"A _she_?"

"A she."

"Hmmm."

He didn't like the _hmmm_.

"You didn't have the _Falcon _then, right?"

"No, she had her own ship."

"Hmmm."

He didn't like that _hmmm _much either.

"But you had another ship before the _Falcon_?"

_Harkness, damn it_… Leia's mind captured every tidbit about him without fail. "I had a Starmite cruiser. It's in million pieces somewhere out there," he answered gruffly, flipping onto his back and cursing the makers of the couch to furniture-making hell. His feet were shoved up over the armrests, and something lumpy was digging into the small of his back. The human quarters had overbooked their hotels, save a few of the priciest and most prestigious geared toward the sybaritic set. Staying with Harkness and Raventhorn had been the simplest solution. "Now I'm going to sleep so I can have nightmares about Kadann and whoever and whatever."

"One more thing," she whispered.

"What's that?"

"You answered when he called you _Slick_."

_Tomorrow, I'm going to glue his big yap shut_… "Old, old nickname and it's a very long story."

"I bet it's a good story."

"Not at this hour it isn't. Now for real, let me go back to sleep."

She laughed softly. "What if I start calling you Slick?"

"I'll have to kill you."

Chapter 10 Chapter 12


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

* * *

Niras Alia Qu'aristoff. Born in 09846. A native of Yashuvhu. Palpatine's personal assistant from 09873-09877, an acclaimed speechwriter and political spin doctor. He'd been instrumental in drafting Palpatine's Doctrine of High Human Culture and was now preserved for time immemorial in the archives of the Imperial registry. His tenure as an aide to the Emperor had ended the same year Darth Vader emerged as a rising power (a fact which registered no surprise). That was it. So short she memorized in one shot. There were a few fuzzy holo images of a man whose face she couldn't make out. She could not discern whether he bore any resemblance to Sarin.

Either Niras and Sarin was the same person, or there was a connection between them that went beyond being born on the same world. Brothers? Naming traditions?

Maybe they hadn't needed Sarin for their experiments after all. Maybe they'd had a volunteer.

There was definitely a connection between the Outer Rim planet and the Emperor, plausibly inspired by someone close to him.

Leia considered the possibilities while wandering across the library grounds. The library itself had turned out to be only a few blocks from Jai and Dirk's inn. Along with a carefully prepared message for Airen Cracken, she'd left the pair with her sincerest thanks and gratitude, and then spent the morning sifting through the archives while Han picked up supplies. Although she'd been given strict instructions to stray no further than the lobby until he returned, the sun was brilliant and inviting at the peak of Elrood's High summer. It looked perfectly safe and secure to her, and if she was going to wind up cooped on a ship for the next little while it seemed not all that selfish to soak in as much fresh air and sun as possible. Any grumblings about disobeying orders would be worth it. Han was late besides.

There were only a handful of people in sight. Many reclined on the well tended white lawns, eating home-brought lunches. A few had purchased the flaky pies the vendor on the front steps of the library was selling. There was a lethargic reader napping with his datareader draped across the bridge of his nose. A young couple kissed and rolled on the manicured grasses as though they were alone; the ruddy-cheeked girl kept dodging her face and laughing while her companion caught her hair and pulled her back.

The grounds were surrounded by gardens of native flowers and creeping vines, pathways crossed with stone benches and fountains. Feeling in need of an old-fashioned cheering up, Leia walked aimlessly through the rainbow of nova roses, commelinas, anagalisses and towering solarflowers. Avian life cheeped and squawked off in the distance. Tidewater winds carried the scent of salt in the air; it clung to her skin like a saline aura.

The gardens also harboured groves of black petalled zinthorns. Their layered leaves shrank back inside the patchy shadows cast by braver fauna, lily-livered, shriveling and quivering in direct sunlight. They were perennial, hearty, durably in bloom, peppery scented and fragrant in the off-seasons - so long as they had their shade. She curbed the urge to trample the ones straying over the edge of the path. It wasn't their fault. Palpatine had designated them the Empire's official flower, and how like him they were, a symbol of a dying reign. Strange to assess a world's political leanings by the flowers tended to in their gardens, but one could.

If she ever had a _real _home again – if there was any such thing - she decided she'd like it to be near the ocean. Having a _home _was an idea, a notion, a dream she seldom permitted herself. At any rate, she frequently wondered how plausible that was considering her work grounded her to Coruscant. It would be as destiny willed it. Sighing over the thought, she made her way around a fountain after yet another quick perusal of the streets for Han.

A woman sat with her face tipped forward, crooning low over her lap. Leia strained to see.

The sight, the realization stopped her dead in her tracks. On the woman's thighs rested an infant, so small it barely seemed to take up any space, wrapped in folds of a pale green receiving blanket. The threaded needle that bound her flesh and feeling was drawn tight; it rent all that was partially healed open anew.

It didn't help that her brain was saying _you were only nine weeks_…

Because most mothers wouldn't feel their unborn children, not until far later along in the pregnancy, not the way she had been able to. It set her apart; it cursed her and blessed her. The ache in her womb resonated keenly, as though it sensed her proximity to a newborn. She sagged onto the bench across from them and swallowed a lump.

The woman leaned down, grasping tiny outstretched fingers, murmuring in an unfamiliar language. The infant had a crown of dark hair. Leia wondered if it was a girl and swallowed lump after lump in rapid succession.

_Gone, gone, and better when it happened then later because otherwise Vader would have had one last posthumous victory and it would have hurt a thousand times more later and there was nothing you could do_…

Her force sense reflexively reached inward and touched nothing. Turning it away, she stretched outward and focused on the gurgling infant, sensed an innate sort of happiness for which there were no words and it didn't matter. She could feel the mother's happiness too, felt a new emotion seize her, and clamped her teeth together.

_You were lying when you told Han you're still the same. You're not_.

No one ever recognized change, not until later.

"Princess Leia Organa? Is it you?"

The infant wailed. She wasn't paying attention in the slightest. "Yes."

* * *

Elraden's policing forces appeared, from the looks of it so far, rather lax. This came as no surprise to Han who was intimately familiar with law enforcement across the galaxy. Patrolmen in the Outer Rim were generally at the bottom of the totem pole, the dumbest of the lot, nothing like the Espo in the Corporate Sector. They patrolled in pairs, sporting knock-offs of the local stormtroopers armor, all of which looked unbearably hot and probably explained the several troopers he'd seen lounging in the shade while on duty. It was enough to lull anyone into a false sense of security but he was sharp enough to remain wary and so was Leia.

Therefore Han wasn't eager to believe what saw as he neared the library.

The fracas caught his attention a block away. _That _and the waiting Elrood Security Transport with the stormtrooper behind the controls. A sickening thud slammed the bottom of his gut. Imperial stormtroopers didn't regularly leave the Starport and that meant only one thing.

They'd been notified that a person of interest to them had been located.

Han immediately grabbed his blaster and ducked behind a rusted red trash receptacle. Two patrolmen were hauling Leia toward the waiting transports. Her arms were in binders and she was trudging at a slug's pace toward the passenger side, resisting rough jabs and orders to step it up. A second stormtrooper was loitering by the open door, though he could only see his head above the transport's roof.

Unfortunately, from his side of the street, his vantagepoint was constrained. Most of the members of the security team were blocked or partially blocked by the transport. Additionally, he was too far away. Even if he tried a sniper attack, he would probably only get two shots, leaving one man standing to heave Leia into the transport before he could reach her. Though he could see the driver's helmet through the window, the glass was probably blaster proof - trying to incapacitate the driver wouldn't work. None of his ready options were practical, nor was taking a roundabout dash to find a better position. There wasn't time and the commotion was attracting a lot of attention they didn't need to top it off. Han swore under his breath, made his analysis and weighed his options, did the math and found the results weren't to his liking. It suddenly seemed more prudent to blend in with the crowd of a dozen and wing it for dear life.

Unclipping his blaster and packing it carefully away in their travel bag, Han hoisted the strap over his shoulder. Then he ran across the street and began waving frantically at the cortege. "Hey! Hey! Where are you taking my wife?"

The crowd parted, freshly curious as to _who _would have the audacity to run hollering into the arms of the authorities.

One of those voice automated helmet speakers responded. "She's under arrest."

Leia's eyes were wild. She'd put up a fierce struggle. Her shirt was torn clear across one shoulder and her face bore a red streak that was evidence of a hard slap. To her credit, one of the men was limping badly. "Uh…Honey, what did you do now?"

"These... These _gentlemen _are under the mistaken impression that I'm someone else."

"They are?" He did his best to keep his gaping to that of a frantic husband about to watch his wife be hauled off due to a case of mistaken identity. The transport's interior was equipped with restraints a Wookiee couldn't break barehanded. He couldn't let her be forced inside. If she was and they took off... the odds were looking worse.

"You know..." Leia replied, "_Her_."

_Gee, and who could that be_? Seeing no other option than to go with the flow, he sighed, grievously. "Ahhh…the Alderaanian Princess routine again. This happens to her all the time. They just look an awful lot alike. She probably thought it was me." He talked fast. "I call her that sometimes. It's a joke between us. I mean, what would _she _be doing on Elrood? Take a look around."

The stormtrooper shook his helmet. "She identified herself to the authorities when they approached her."

_No she didn't_. "Oh, but she's prone to delusions," he muttered, taking another step forward so that he was between the party and the transport. "A regular 10-96."

"This is a big mistake," Leia warned. "Captain Sal and I were just married here. We're on our honey-" The explanation was lost. While she was speaking one of the patrolmen had peeled off his gloves and begun a lazy search of her person, sticking a hand where it had no business being. She screeched, "Get your filthy paws off me," and drove her heels into the shins of the stormtrooper behind her.

Her captor bellowed and wrenched her left arm up in an unnatural position, grabbing her hair and snapping her head back in the same motion. The new pose had Leia up on her tiptoes and compliant to avoid having her shoulder dislocated. "You behave," he snapped.

"Look…there's no need for all this..." Solo tried to stay calm, tried not to watch what they were doing – _where _those hands were going. "This is all a big mistake like she said. There's no need to-"

The Telltrig glinted in the sunlight. "What have we here? This doesn't look like anything you should be needing on a honeymoon." Two blasters turned his way. Suddenly, Han, the concerned husband, became of great interest to them. "Sir, can we see your I.D."

He gulped, wishing he'd gone with his first instincts and made his debut as a sniper. His only consolation was that they hadn't recognized him yet, but they would eventually, and then he would have only two choices. Surrender, go with her and hope they'd have a chance to escape on the way to their headquarters - which wasn't likely to happen. Dying on the street seemed preferable to what would await them at their headquarters, and two against four was better than two against a garrison. _And_, Han thought, _you've always said you preferred a straight fight_. He said, "Yeah I've got I.D."

"Let's see it."

He reached casually into his bag and fingered the trigger on his blaster.

From the gardens came a godsend, a critical onlooker. "Look at what he's doing to that girl." The lament caught the trooper's ear, who eased his grip on her arm.

"My wife has an awful temper," he encouraged boldly. "Don't you honey?"

Leia met his eyes, blinked, brought her heels up again and slammed them back.

Han discharged a volley of blasts at the Elroodian patrolmen and dove behind the transport. Red streaks of blaster fire sizzled just past where he'd been standing. Old pilot reflexes kept his attention focused while he flipped to the other side, expecting the driver to break out firing. He heard a slew of streaming maledictions erupting from Leia and her captor; the sounds of ensuing pandemonium as the crowd shrieked and began to scatter to avoid wild fire.

When no one exited he bent low and made a foot count beneath the belly of the transport; he counted one pair of gleaming military style boots and Leia's smaller ones. Through the din he could hear the driver calling for backup, reporting two men down, and through the haze of smoke he spied two inert bodies. Generic mass produced plasarmor was worthless against a well-modified Blastech. Good. Two to go.

Their voices were panicked. "Did you see where he went?"

"Check your side!"

"Go ahead and pull that thing," she was daring.

"Did he run?"

Another pair of boots stepped down, paused, and then turned around. Han held his breath and slid the shredded travel bag off his weapon. _That's right… look under here to see if you can see my feet_…

"You know what?" Leia furthered. "In the Core we refer to the Imperials stationed out here as the Empire's little minions. Not cut out for any line of work that involves the mental capacity of a five year old."

"_Shut her up_!"

The boots stepped away from the transport, but not far enough for Han to get a clean shot from his angle, not any higher than his knees. _Damn. _He wasn't sure if Leia was trying to incite them to murder her outright or what.

"Did you even graduate from the Academy on Carida?"

"I mean it."

"Pardon me," she snickered. "I've always wondered where they sent the ones who flunked out first year."

Either the stormtrooper wasn't too quick on the uptake or he was _really _trying to ignore her. Everyone's feet were glued in place. "How long 'til they get here?"

"Any minute now."

His cue. They were cowering with their prize like a pair of children. Whatever these two idiots were doing, they obviously weren't trying to secure the scene and he couldn't afford to wait. Sucking in a hard breath, and flinching inside, Han fired at the knees. There was horrible guttural _oomph_, and then a visceral scream that had no beginning and no end.

Promptly, and trying not to let his breakfast get the best of him, he charged around the back end of the transport.

Unfortunately, the remaining stormtrooper had anticipated his choice of direction and met him with a carbine in the gut just as he rounded the corner. His only consolation was the fact that his own blaster was likewise jammed in the break of the stormtrooper's armor. The perilous position left the two men glaring at each other with their fingers ready. They froze, and then each carefully took a slow step back.

At the nose of the craft, the disabled man was writhing in agony, incapable of coherent sounds much less the retrieval his weapon. Leia was sprawled sideways in the gravel, trying in vain to hop her legs back through her hands. The binders had been wedged so high up her forearms during the squabble she was virtually helpless.

"Drop that and put your hands up," the Imperial ordered.

"Drop yours," Han returned.

"Do it or I'll fire."

"So will I."

"Do it!"

Han clicked the release. Time stretched interminably. The bloodcurdling screaming continued in the background. Leia was still trying to scramble to her feet. "No!"

It was almost funny: at this range, both of them were going to die. He couldn't see the man's face through the heavy visor well enough to see his expression, but he could almost hear the opening bar of Deeply Religious' _How Do They See Anyway_. The sun beating down on them calmed him in an abstract way. Bounty hunters and other scum dwelled in the dark. Space travel, battle – all those dangers were surrounded by darkness. On a beautiful day when the air smelled this good, death seemed untenable.

The stormtrooper buckled, heaved his sidearm into the street. "They'll lockdown the Starport before you make it to your ship when I tell them-"

The dormant stirrings of Han's conscience wished the man had kept his mouth shut.

* * *

Leia washed her face and shed her soiled and torn clothing. Her cheek smarted. Her shoulder was throbbing. On closer inspection her wrists were starting to swell; ligature marks formed purplish half circles on the outside. She'd been trying so hard to free them, to stall, to do anything to buy herself time until Han arrived; she hadn't been sure at all that he would be able to pull off the rescue he had. Her self-loathing had reached an apex beyond all levels previously known.

None of that had _needed _to happen. None of that _should _have happened. She'd been picked up like an amateur in a public place and almost gotten them both captured. She _did _know better than wander around an open space without watching her back. If someone called your name, you ran without looking behind you. You didn't say, "Oh hi."

The taxi ride to the Starport had stretched out interminably. Han had mumbled a string of filthy expletives while he picked the lock on her binders – not easy in a moving vehicle, nor while he was shouting at the taxi driver to get a move on. At the Starport he'd handed the driver a fistful of credits, offered a second for the shirt off his back, and ordered Leia to put it on over her torn clothes. The binders had been shoved beneath the seat.

Right at that moment, the crippled stormtrooper had probably been moaning his story and alerting the entire planet to their presence. He would never walk again – not on his own legs, and Leia doubted they'd provide top medical care for a stormtrooper who'd broken the laws drilled into his head during his tenure. _You are expendable. Your life is secondary to your service to the Empire_.

To their relief, the Imperial squadrons inside the Starport had not been alerted yet. No one stopped them when Han handed in his registry chip. They were escorted to the _Falcon _by the very same officer who'd checked them in, who said he hoped they'd enjoyed their stay and would return for anniversaries and such like all the other tourists. Han smiled and gritted his teeth until they were on board, kicked the crates of pre-loaded supplies out of the way gave Elrood his lasting well wishes.

On board, he snapped that he hoped Jai and Dirk had reliable enough credentials if they ran a city sweep.

The mother, upon seeing the authorities, had given her a scathing glance as though she were a petty criminal, seized her child to her breast and run off. Then the binders had snapped shut.

_This doesn't happen to you_, she thought. _Leia Organa does not let herself get distracted and taken into custody by imbeciles_. Han would never have allowed himself to be distracted. Luke would never have allowed himself to be distracted. Luke would also be offering his cursory, 'what's over and done with is not worth kicking yourself over.' It was one those things he said though he wasn't as dedicated to applying it to himself, but it would have helped. She missed him terribly.

A search of Han's meager wardrobe turned up no more of her own clothes save white robes. Her civilian clothes were all torn or in the cleaning unit. She donned a grungy pair of fatigues and one of Han's old pullovers and started the sani-steamer. Then she sat on the floor with her head between her knees, trying to control the rapid let down of adrenaline in her system. It wasn't until some time after the jump to hyperspace that she worked up enough courage to seek him out.

She found him at the engineering station with his techaide. It was a healthy sign. Fine-tuning was his euphemism for cooling-off mode. "Han," she murmured softly.

"_You_." He paused, though his arms remained aloof with the techaide. Then he said, "I'll ask you once."

"Ask me-"

"You know what? If I didn't show up when I did, I would have had no idea where they'd taken you. There are three Star Destroyers in this Sector. Right this second…" The beeping of the techaide erupted into a shrill tone. It wasn't an opening to speak. Han adjusted whatever it was the device was screeching about before continuing. "Right this second they'd have you on your way to visit the Sector Moff for a Q and A session." He shook his head angrily. "You've spent five years running from the Empire Leia. You know the drill. You know better than to wander around brain dead without watching your back. You don't answer if I shout your name. So just…please tell me you didn't."

He had heard the stormtrooper loud and clear then. "I can't."

"Then what happened down there?"

"I… I fucked up."

"You fucked up?"

"Yes."

"Give me a better reason than that," he growled. "That's pathetic."

She was tempted to make one up. _A fainting spell. I woke up and there they were._ "I don't have one."

"Bless the stars they were lousy shots."

"Or that you're a good shot," she said quietly.

"A regular master marksman," he told her flippantly. "Pull another stunt like that and I'll end up a legend. A _deceased _legend."

Han didn't even have the decency to turn around. Livid, she choked back a sob, bridged the few steps between them and pummeled his back with her fists. "What about the stunt you pulled?" she shouted. "What the hell was I supposed to do if he didn't fall for your bluff? That stupid, _stupid _stand-off of yours-"

Han spun around and snatched her wrists. The techaide clattered across the floor. "_You were supposed to get up and run_."

"How?" She wouldn't have found the strength to stand. She would have still been there when backup arrived and she wouldn't have cared. "How was I supposed to run?" she wailed, using her elbows to attack him.

Han tightened his grip and shoved her back to arm's length. "Will you calm down? _We're _all right. _I'm _all right! Now calm down!"

"It was my fault, not yours. You shouldn't have taken that kind of risk!"

"Leia, look at me. I'm all right, see? No one got hurt. We got away."

By then, Han's face and jacket were a watery blob of colors. She stopped struggling. "It was my fault. You shouldn't have done that… he might have shot you and then..."

"What else was I supposed to do?"

"I don't know."

"Leia..." There was no malice or derision, no chastising. "I didn't have a choice. I wasn't about to leave you there." He released her wrists and she stepped into his arms and leaned her forehead against his chest. "Though honestly I don't know whether to yell at you or hug you so hard I break every bone in your body. I'm pretty near going with either."

She hugged him as fiercely as her aching shoulder would allow. "Well the same goes for you." Then because she'd been too shaken to say so before, she said, "Thank you for coming after me."

"What else was I gonna do?"

"I don't know... but _thank you_. I don't know what I would have done if you didn't."

"I mean seriously," Han explained. "What would I have told your brother? Oops, sorry, I lost her on Elrood. Yeah, yeah, I could've tried to rescue her but she told me to go away. You know how she is. Plus the food service in those new customized prisons cells puts my cooking to shame."

"No it doesn't," she told him.

"And then your brother would have said, 'well what about those iron benches they call beds', and I would have had to go on about the new and improved deluxe sleeping quarters… And then, 'say Luke, did I tell you about the new freshers? They got rid of the hole of in the corner…"

She tried in vain to stifle her giggling.

"Oh, oh, oh," he teased. "I hear a happy sound."

"Stop…stop trying to be funny. This _isn't _funny."

"Is someone being funny here?" he asked in mock disbelief. "It's not me, I swear. I would never do that."

"Yes you would. That's exactly like you."

"Then you've got me." He began rubbing her back. "Though I'd say you're the one who gives new meaning to the expression 'royal pain in the ass.' I thought they were going to knock you upside the head and haul you in unconscious."

They both laughed this time.

She felt off kilter, calm and profoundly disorientated all at once, hyper aware of his hands on her back. His legs were very warm where they touched hers. Impulsively she stood on the tips of her toes and pressed her mouth against his collarbone, inhaled the scent of masculine sweat and tasted salt. Then she slipped her hands beneath his shirt and ran her palms over his ribs, over the muscles of his lower back. His skin felt sleek, hot, and smooth to the touch.

Han made a strangling sound deep in his throat. "Um…you know your whole speech yesterday," he exhaled laboriously, quite possibly going against every hot-blooded Corellian instinct coursing through his veins. He exhaled again. "This isn't helping. It really, really isn't."

Evidence of what this wasn't helping was already digging into her stomach. She didn't shift. Instead she slipped one of her hands behind her own back and caught his. Then she guided it over the curve of her hip. She didn't want to let him go. It didn't need to be more complicated than that unless she permitted herself to start thinking and if she started thinking she was going to break down. She didn't want to. All she said was, "its okay."

"And you don't owe me this either. Whatever you're thinking."

"I know I don't owe you this," she replied.

"Oh then." The mirthful tone remained in his voice. "Where'd you find this?"

"This?"

"You're wearing my shirt?"

She failed to see how that was relevant and peered up. "Do you mind?"

"No. I like you in my clothes." His eyes were smiling and dangerous and his hands continued their almost incurious study of her shoulders beneath her own. "Course," he said slowly, leaning down to nuzzle the side of her throat, "I like you a whole lot better with them off."

The sensation of his teeth and tongue dizzied her, made her feel lightheaded and pooled in the pit of her stomach. "You do, huh?" she managed.

"I thought you knew that."

He kissed her and every sense drifted to his tongue stroking hers, to his lips, to the scruff of his chin scraping her bare skin. Something hard thwacked the back of her head – or she tripped, she wasn't exactly sure – but suddenly her entire body was suddenly compressed between the wall and his torso and his hands had found their way beneath her shirt. Something pointy jabbed her sore shoulder but it barely registered. Ragged breathing muffled the sounds of the ship like white noise, her own moans and the low growls Han was making in the back of his throat.

Then, they were on the floor and she was beneath him while her brain was still trying to process how they'd gone from up to down. They fought to undress each other while their hands continued their frantic exploration. Han sucked at the skin on the base of her neck, cupped her breasts while his tongue intermittently found her mouth. He dragged her fatigues down and swung her legs apart at the knees and over his head, covering her body in one swift movement. She locked her legs around his back and held her breath, felt her body yield to him. His entry was sharp and intense and beautiful. Waves of anticipation washed through her, fueled unintelligible responses.

Han groaned and pressed his face into her hair, slid in and out, gently at first. After a few moments he increased the tempo, spooning her bottom in his hands and lifting her, so that he was never really withdrawing, but driving into her with such force that at first she was whimpering from both pain and pleasure. There was no rhythm, no cadence, just a desperate sense of urgency escalating and devouring them whole. She sank her teeth into his shoulder and strained to meet him, felt him stroking the inside of her thighs.

Time stalled while everything else erupted into a blur of flesh and mouths and touch. Her fingers and toes began tingling. The ceiling over her head seemed impossibly hazed over, disorientating. Deep within her she could feel the shattering of everything tangible and real, little spider webs spreading in every direction. She closed her eyes and held on for dear life, feeling as though she were floating, detached, adrift in a nether realm not of his creation or her own, and that any second now the circle would feed itself, knew when it traveled to the center she would break and disintegrate.

The orgasm bordered on violent. Her entire body convulsed; distantly she heard herself making shrill cries and felt her innermost muscles contract around him. It was powerful enough to bring him with her, and after a few more thrusts he collapsed on top of her.

They lay joined until he softened and slipped out. He kissed her face. He called her _sweetheart _and _baby _and _beautiful_, every term of endearment that had belonged to her in the past, as though she had re-earned them or been reborn on the polished hull plating. She thought she never wanted to get up.

Gradually she became aware that the floor was cold against her back, that Han's body was warm and sticky against her own, that her teeth were chattering and she was shivering, though not from chill. Han's hipbone was hurting her pelvis and she wanted to close her legs together to contain the spasms rippling through her. Her feet refused to cooperate. Han felt her trying to move and swung them both up, shifting his legs until she was sitting in his lap. Her cheeks stung from the mixture of tears and their sweat so she wiped her face against the hair on his chest.

They stayed that way for a long time.

Han was oddly quiet. "I didn't hurt you," he said finally.

"No," she said. He hadn't, though she'd never seen him that unstrained, felt him handle her body so roughly. "I feel… good," she added, because she did. She also felt sated and drained and euphoric, sad, all jumbled together.

He kissed her cheeks again and began massaging her calves. "You feel amazing."

"So do you." She reached behind him and caught a handful of bunched up and twisted inside-out fabric swathed around her boots. "Um, how did you manage to do this to us Solo?"

He shrugged sheepishly. "Spur of the moment inspiration." He wriggled his hips and brought his knees up. "To tell the truth it's beginning to feel kind of kinky. You can't get up unless I let you."

"Neither can you."

"Nope."

She leaned back against his knees, supported by his arms, and closed her eyes. It reminded her in a strange way of the mother and child that she'd seen in the gardens, laying there helpless and unable to move. If she stayed still Han would keep touching her and she would stay feeling like this. Maybe it hadn't been the mother she'd been envying after all.

"Leia." Han stiffened. "I forgot to ask you-"

"There was a shot for that too," she murmured. "I can't… I can't…" _Risk getting pregnant for at least a year_. That's what Tryll had told her. That her natural reaction to losing a child might be to want to conceive again, that she might not think rationally, that her womb needed time to heal. It had been a precaution. "I won't."

"Good then."

He sounded relieved. That hurt. _Both_, she thought.****


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

* * *

Han had a very strange twilight dream.

In his dream, he and Leia were at Ben Kenobi's. Ben's old home was no longer a _home_, but what appeared to be a mausoleum or an ancient style of crypt. His kitchen table had been replaced by a funeral bier, his cabinets by tapestries, and every inch of the floors was covered with candles. Han had tried to step his way around them, observed the flames lick at the hem of the cloak he wore, but oddly, they weren't hot and they failed to catch him.

Luke's body lay atop the bier wrapped in the umber folds of his cloak. Braided rope tied his wrists and ankles. It was as though someone had wanted to bind him in the afterlife. Han thought he looked very peaceful. Leia kept trying to convince him he was asleep but he knew, with that eerie sense of dream certainty (the sort where you knew things and didn't pause to question them) that Skywalker was dead and he wasn't going to wake up.

Now that he was fully awake, he was eternally grateful that he wasn't a Jedi and that his dreams boded no ill omens for the future.

Aside from the lingering uneasiness left by the near dream he felt good. Better than good, as a matter of fact. He'd made love to Leia again on the floors of the engineering station before untangling her feet and carrying her into his cabin. There they'd made love all over again, and what had begun as wild and abandoned had grown tender and submissive, her body painstakingly explored, tasted, and invaded.

The Adarians, according to his friend Roa, had over five hundred different expressions relating to sexual behavior. More than half of those referred to the act itself, depending on the mood and emotions, time of day, position, duration, whether both participants found it mutually pleasurable, and then to varying degrees of how pleasurable the mating was. Vocabulary existed to describe the first time you made love, the first time after an extended separation, sex in the heat of the moment, sex with someone you loved. One word was capable of encapsulating an entire experience, reducing it to two or three vowels. There were no needs for further adjectives or detailed descriptions.

Nearing the end of the _Falcon's _pre-programmed day cycle, Han could only recall, appropriately enough, one term in the Adarian language.

_Ja'farissah_.

It meant afterglow.

If the giddy euphoria could be bottled and sold, the galaxy would be a much kinder place he thought. People wouldn't need spice and alcohol, the t'landa T'il and their Exaltations would have no servants, no slaves, and no victims. Power and money would cease to drive worlds to war and ruin. The sapient philosophers and pacifists could revel in visions of their utopian societies. Of course, the more he thought about it the more it seemed that last part had volumes upon volumes dedicated to it already, that perhaps his idea lacked originality. _He _might feel more peaceful and happier than he had in months, but he could only imagine Leia's laughter if he gave her his new slant on diplomacy. Just order the warring parties to bed first, and then bounce over to the discussion platform. How human of you, she would say. You're forgetting that not all species do this. What about the Hutts? What about the Bith? What about the… Her list would be long.

Besides, Palpatine had probably plotted his ascension to power between his mistress' silk sheets.

Granted, afterglow was fleeting. Now Leia was sound asleep, with her head crooked up against his chest, her knees drawn up partway. One of her ankles was tucked between his calves. She cradled his bent arm against her breasts like a worn childhood toy. With each exhale the hairs on his forearm wiggled and danced. Han would have preferred to sleep too, but there were two abandoned crates of perishables in the hall behind the main hatch. They needed to be put away in the galley's refrigeration unit soon.

Prying his arm free carefully, he nudged her away and swung his legs over the edge of the bunk. Leia sighed and rolled onto her back. The stretch of bare skin induced him to lean forward and draw his tongue along the curve of her shoulder. She shivered and made an annoyed purr in the back of her throat. Encouraged, he waited a few seconds and retraced his wet trail.

Her hand flew up again and felt his hair. "I was starting to dream," she whispered, without opening her eyes, "that something was trying to lick me to death. But of course it's just you."

"Lick you to death," he teased involuntarily. "Now there's a depraved fantasy I can honestly say I've never had."

"My depraved fantasies all involve sleeping," she countered groggily. "Imagine that."

"You don't say?" Trying to replay the day's events over again, he slid his palm over blade of her shoulder - the one the stormtrooper had brutally wrenched behind her back. He'd elicited several ouches already, and thought it a wonder that the shoulder wasn't broken or dislocated. After a moment's reflection, Han determined that the guilty party had been the first one down. Han wasn't a vindictive or soulless man, not by any means, but he knew when to avoid second guessing his actions, knew when not to waste his time feeling contrite. They'd all gotten what they deserved, either for past crimes or future cruelties. He and Leia were both alive and they weren't in custody. There _were _fates worse than death. "How are you feeling?"

She smiled a touch sheepishly. "Good. You?"

He smiled back, noting that her cheeks were red with scruff burn and made a quick vow to shave soon. "Me too. But I meant how's your shoulder?"

"A little sore. Nothing that won't fade in a day or two."

He nodded. They'd been this route before. There'd been too many occasions, close calls, near escapes, where they'd comforted each other and tried to assuage lingering panic, joked beneath edgy nervous tension, "And how many bumps and scrapes did you get this time?"

"Han…" She sat up, brushed hair away from her eyes and gathered the sheet over her breasts. "I forgot to tell you before. I know where we can go. Where we _need_to go."

He started searching for his pants, located them in the hatchway, one leg in, one leg out, as though they hadn't made up their mind about whether to enter his cabin or not. "Go?"

"To hole up for a while. It's not far from here. Once you reach the edge of the Sector we're almost there."

He made a harrumph in the back of his throat. "Oh, no…"

"There's a very good chance Luke might be there," she implored.

Han fought off hazy visions of sand dunes and blinding suns, but they were too fresh on his mind to obliterate completely. _But of course she was going to ask… and you knew it, didn't you_? It may have been at the back of his mind but it had probably been creeping forward. Fortunately, Leia draped in sultry black thermasilk with her hair loosely framing her body provided a beautiful distraction. "It's certainly out of the way and isolated," he commented glibly.

"And you know how he is about Ben."

"He can recite every conversation they ever had word for word and claims to still communicate with him."

"He _does _still communicate with him," Leia corrected.

"Yes, Sweetheart," he deadpanned, not all that sure he did believe it, not at sure that he didn't. Leia caught the less than subtle attempt to humor her, but before she could comment, he went on. "You want to go to Ben's place then?"

"Yes. I wouldn't be surprised if Luke is there now. Sparing that, he'll show up eventually. There aren't many other places he would go."

_Weird_. Han wondered whether Luke and Leia's precognitive senses were catching. He wasn't all that excited about revisiting the planet that had almost been his final resting place, but it would be like Skywalker to go somewhere familiar to sort out what he was going through… if he wanted to be found by his sister. If he didn't, he imagined the kid would be headed for the farthest place from his homeworld. On the flipside, it would save him the struggle of convincing Leia to stay put for a while and he _had _promised they would look for him. "Okay," he told her. "When we drop out of hyper at the edge of the Sector, Tatooine it is."

He dragged his pants on, left for the galley and began unpacking. Tatooine was forgotten within minutes beneath the barrage of racing thoughts and emotions that were uncharacteristically sentimental. There were also all the 'what now's?' that he didn't want to sort out quite yet. Leia was in his bed, and as far as he was concerned, the rest of the galaxy was on hold while they maintained their own private cease-fire. He hummed to himself while he worked.

_She's in your bed…_

She's happy…

She still loves you

…

Those were the things that he was sure of, even the final one. He'd seen the way she was looking at him when she'd first sought him out earlier. He'd been sure then, even if he hadn't been the last few days. Now what he wanted to do was curl up in bed with her and stay there for a week.

It only took ten minutes to empty the goods into the galley's stowaway compartments. Dried goods went below the counter and those that needed to be frozen or refrigerated went in their respective units. He dumped the leftover crates in a smuggling compartment. Then he grabbed an armful of red skinned fruit and a small basket of yellow berries, along with a plate and a knife. Back in his cabin, he promptly suffered disappointment. Leia had retrieved the remainder of their clothes from the engineering station and redressed.

Upon seeing his surprise, she clapped with delight. "Han, you found sunfruit!"

Han tried to contain his own delight at her reaction. Sunfruit was Leia's favorite, he'd remembered that and it had taken over an hour of searching to find it. (_The vendor at the end of the row specializes in exotics_, they kept telling him, except the urban planning of the market made it something of a maze and the stalls had gone on and on and on without end.) He collected a stray towel and spread it across the center of the bed, then laid out their impromptu feast. "They won't last so we have to eat them now."

"We do, huh?"

"Every last one. No stopping until we're both in fruit induced comas."

She laughed and sniffed the berries. "What are these?"

"I can't remember what they're called. They're native to Elrood and the vendor at the fruit stand went on and on about them, said I absolutely had to try them. I bought them so he'd shut up."

Leia plucked a few and popped them in her mouth, oohing and ahhing while he sliced the sunfruit into segments that disappeared as fast as he sliced them. The vendor hadn't been exaggerating about his local produce. The mystery berries were so sweet at first bite the nerves in his cheeks shivered painfully from the tart and sugary taste.

They climbed back on the bed, talking about Luke while they ate. Again, Leia stressed that she genuinely believed that they would find her brother and that he would be all right. She said that she could feel it in her heart. It got him on a tangent thinking about the last time that he'd seen the two of them together. Luke had shown up unannounced for dinner right before he'd left for Folor – he'd missed the dinner and arrived at her quarters just as Luke was leaving. Neither Skywalker had looked all that happy. They'd both been wearing expressions that mirrored each other more than either would have wanted to admit, as though each found the other the most impossible person to talk to. Leia hadn't exactly gone into details with him about what had transpired, save that, it had been related to her training or lack thereof. An she had muttered a few comments bitterly under her breath.

_He makes me feel like being his sister isn't good enough. He's obsessed with one part of me and one part of me alone_.

Then Luke had departed for Folor.

There had definitely been a major shift in their relationship down on Baskarn, which Leia confirmed more through her tone than in actual words. He made a mental note to ask her about it later. They ate and cuddled until Leia declared her stomach was going to burst and her chin was shiny with sunfruit juice. He insisted she eat the last piece, kissed her and licked her face, thinking licking her to death might have its appeal after all.

Eventually she squirmed free of his mouth and rested her head on his shoulder. "I dreamed about eating fruit every day we were down there."

"You did?"

"Fruit and hot baths…" She stared absent mindedly at their naked feet for a moment before returning her attention to him. "It was terrible being down there and being so sick all the time. Luke was so wonderful."

It went over his head. "Your brother's a big softie when it comes to you." Then he thought back. "Why were you sick?"

"The joys of early pregnancy," she murmured softly.

_As if_, he thought with a pang, _I could ever forget_. "Oh. That's right. I... Well I guess I hadn't thought of all that."

Leia replied with her own, "Oh."

He wasn't sure what he should say next. Leia resumed staring at her toes. Either way he fairly certain he was stumbling into one of those tricky situations where he was going to say the wrong thing and blow this. He'd been told in the past he had a knack for that, and he really didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to think about it. The mere mention rattled him. Getting out of his cabin became a priority. He needed to rebuild his guard without her watching him, needed to think this feeling through alone.

"Do you want some caf?" he asked, patting her knee and hopping up, trying to sound as normal as possible. He collected the remains of their meal and folded the edges of the towel together, scooping up the leftover seeds, skins, and plate. "I'm going to go make some caf. I could use some."

"Now?"

It was a terribly obvious departure. "I'll make you some."

In the galley he started a pot and mentally kicked himself. The notion of Leia carrying a child was inconceivable. Her body hadn't changed. If he hadn't been there that day he never would have known and in a way he wished he didn't. He wasn't exactly sure how to tell her he didn't want to talk about it, wasn't capable of extending himself that far yet.

_It already had a father_.

He stared at the caf distiller and willed it to brew faster, watched the opaque pot fill drip by drip. Briefly he wondered how he would have felt if _it _had been his, if _it _had been his and there hadn't been any 'accident' causing a miscarriage. What if the miscarriage had never happened? And then, learning that the Imperial interrogation drugs would have killed the fetus anyway… for Leia that was tantamount to all of her worst fears coming true. He wondered if she was still having nightmares.

The distiller had finished brewing and he was still staring at it when he heard Leia enter behind him. Her arms reached around his waist and settled on his stomach. He dropped his chin and studied her fingers, the re-growing nails, tiny pink scars on her knuckles from almost healed cuts.

She burrowed her head against his back. "You're upset."

Cringing inwardly, he patted her forearm and reached for two mugs. "I'm not upset. Go and have seat. I'll fix you a cup." He added milk and frill syrup to both cafs and delivered them, feeling remarkably ill at ease. _It shouldn't be this awkward, he thought. We were in bed together not an hour ago and now we're sitting here and I have no idea what to say to her because whatever comes out is going to be wrong_...

Leia ignored her beverage, holding her chin in her hand with two fingers splayed across her lips. Her expression was guarded and solemn. She went first. "It's not fair, Han."

"What isn't?"

"I'm not going to forget everything that's happened to me recently. It's not going to go away. I don't want to forget."

"No one said you were supposed to."

"You took off because I brought it up."

The pullover was slipping off one of her shoulders. He resisted the urge to reach over and tug it up because the gesture would have required him to get off his seat. It was too late to change positions without drawing attention to how far away he'd sat in the first place. "No I didn't. I wanted some caf. And no one's asking you to forget anything. Leia, you've been through a lot. I know that."

"It bothers you if I mention her. It did in there. I could tell. Don't... don't... just don't lie, okay?"

_Yes_.

The word crouched in the shadows of the galley, alive, breathing, and waiting.

Either way he was stuck. If he said 'no' she'd know he was lying. If he said 'yes', she would tell him that this had all been a big mistake. Han might have said either, except that he had never seen Leia quite as vulnerable as she'd been lately. Not as she was now, afraid of what he might say or do, wearing an expression that was the anticipation of hurt, for times when they said things like 'hold your breath, this'll only sting and then it'll all be over.' They always lied about things like that. The image of her bawling in the examining room filled his mind's eye, along with his reactions that afternoon. The last thing he wanted to do was make it worse. He struggled a bit, and settled for, "It bothers me to see to you hurting. If you-" The next part didn't come out quite so easily. "If you want to talk about it go ahead."

She shook her head. "I know it won't make it easier for you but you have it all wrong. I was going to do this by myself. I was going to resign from the Inner Council-"

"What are you talking about?"

"I couldn't serve as Alderaan's representative while I was pregnant and unmarried. I was going to step down before it went public. They never would have permitted it. With that and with news of Luke's and my parentage about to come out I couldn't risk anything happening to her. So you see, until a few weeks ago my life was in the midst of a major upheaval and I was left with major decisions about where I was going to go and what I was going to do. This wasn't a ripple in the stream of things. My entire life was changing. Luke was gone. You were gone and I know it sounds crazy but it isn't, and I know you always think this stuff is crazy but I could _feel _her. I could feel her inside of me the whole time she was growing…"

Han's insides flinched. "You could?"

"Yes." She hugged herself. "So you have to understand. I'm not pleading for your sympathy but... when I was sitting on the bed with you I realized... Well I realized that we probably wouldn't be here if I was still pregnant." Her voice fell catatonically flat. "And then I thought, I can't even tell you how much it hurts because you don't want to know and why are we in bed together if I feel like I can't talk to you. I don't want to believe that this had to happen in order for you to still be here. It hurts so much to even think that. I just… Stop me from thinking it. Say something to stop me from thinking it because I'm going to and I can't help it."

"You shouldn't think that," he instructed, reaching over to take her hand in his. "_Don't _think that. I would never have wished that sort of pain and suffering on you for any reason whatsoever. I hated seeing you go through it." Yes, he'd overreacted but since then, he'd done everything within his power to make sure she was safe, make sure she stayed healthy. He'd spent two weeks on Baskarn believing there was someone else, and if that didn't prove anything to her he didn't know what would. "I'm here and I've been here all along," he said gently. "But I can't give you blanket reassurances for a situation that's more complex than a yes or no answer."

She pursed her lips and blew out a long sigh. "I'm not asking that of you. I know it sounds like it but that's not it at all."

"Then what do you want?"

"To feel like I can say what I need to without you backing away from me."

"You can."

"Maybe I'm asking too much of you." She clamped her lower lip between her teeth and shook her head. "Maybe we're not ready to do this."

The respite was accepted. Fingering the bruises around her wrists he leaned over closer and lowered his voice. "Say, have you ever seen my impersonation of a Two-One-Bee?"

"You're impersonation of a Two-One Bee?" she stammered, a look of sheer bewilderment developing on her face. "Whatsoever…"

He tugged her sleeve up partway and inspected the rather nasty evidence of her brush with Elrood's law enforcement. "We should really wrap those. I have some topical stuff that'll help with the swelling. Roll up your sleeves properly and sit tight. I'll be right back."

"They'll be fine."

"_Sit_."

"You've gotten really bossy over the last few months, did I mention that," she called after him.

"Who me?" he hollered back.

"Yes you."

That sounded like the Leia he remembered, and it was the first casual connection either of them had made between _then _and _now_. He followed the looping corridor to the first-aid bay and grabbed the medpac, dumping the contents on the patient bunk. Then he grabbed the few items he needed and returned to the galley. Leia had obediently rolled up her sleeves and rested her elbows on the table so that both injured wrists were waiting and ready. He couldn't help it. "I don't remember you ever being so good at following orders."

"Two-One Bee's don't tease their patients. They'd give you a memory wipe for that sort of attitude."

"Oh, I see." Han smeared her left wrist with ointment and meticulously wrapped it with sterile bandaging. The bruising and cuts were mainly superficial, but they were raw and redder than before, bleeding a little where the cuts were deepest. When he was finishing her right wrist, she burst out laughing.

"What?" he asked.

"That wrapping isn't waterproof is it?"

"No."

"Oh well. I can just get you to wrap it again after I shower."

"And you thought you'd wait to mention that."

"You didn't ask." She leaned over and hugged him, curled her white swathed wrists behind him. They scratched, papery, at the nape of his neck. "Or maybe we can go back to bed. I might be too exhausted to make it into the shower. You can hold me and not let me go."

And he knew some sort of unspoken affirmation had passed between them at this table, though he was at a loss for exactly what. "I'm pretty good at that," he assured her, kissing her neck rapidly with playful affection. "It's been an eventful day."

"It has."

He let her lead him back to his cabin. It had been so long since they'd slept together that it took a few awkward moments for him to remember how to get comfortable with her there, but eventually, he curled around her the way he used to.

* * *

**Tatooine: Four days later**.

Alpha 1733-Mu 3449, Quadrant 1 was famous galaxy-wide for one reason, and one reason alone. It was also so inhospitable and isolated that it attracted little in the way of tourists or guests. For those obsessive and peculiar beings who felt it necessary to visit to the last of the Jedi's' home planet, the destination marked 'Obi-Wan Kenobi's Home' was an old hermit's cave in Beggar's Canyon. There'd once been dozens of hermits living out there, but Jabba the Hutt had driven them off years before Luke took his first skyhopper ride through the criss-crossing canyons. The tourists never knew the difference, still left feeling they had touched the walls of history, tread upon the same sodium rich sand as his teacher, mistakenly believed they had seen where Luke Skywalker first picked up a lightsaber.

Three hundred kilometers East, at Alpha 1733-Mu-9033, Quadrant 1, Ben Kenobi's veritable dwelling rested anonymously on the mesa, overlooking the craggy outcroppings and ridges bordering the Dune Sea. It was impossible to approach from any one direction without being spotted. For over two decades, it had gone undetected by Tatooine's human residents, Jawas and Tusken Raiders. One simply needed to know exactly where to find it, and there were very few beings in the galaxy that did.

Luke and Leia were two of them.

Few creatures ever ventured willingly nearer the Dune Sea. The sea itself was lonely and whole all at once. It was a dried up ocean that had erased every trace of the creatures that had once inhabited it. It gathered its victims to its bosom and forgot about them as fast as the suns and sands could dry them and sweep them away. Other than the occasional susurration of the wind, sand pelting, the far off sound of dewbacks calling to each other or the buzz of a sandfly, there was nothing to hear.

The quiet was what Leia remembered most vividly. She remembered it from her time on Tatooine, before they'd launched their half-cracked plan to rescue Han from Jabba the Hutt. It made her inner voices and thoughts seem preternaturally loud, reawakened.

The quiet hadn't changed at all.

Unfortunately, upon arrival they'd discovered Ben's Kenobi's home to be an utter disaster, though disaster was an understatement. Disaster _area_, sandstorm's final destination, site of a whirling sand tornado, or sand hurricane - those were more like it. The entire dwelling was coated with a heavy layer of sand, an ankle deep beach in the main room. Luke had described to her the autumnal storms about that rolled across Tatooine post harvest season and said they periodically demolished late crops that struggled to ripen. With the doors wide open they'd made short work inside. The furnishings had been swept up and over, shelves collapsed. Pottery and dishes, anything breakable had been shattered. It had taken them over four hours to clean up. It would have taken longer but Han had rigged the sonic vacuum from the _Falcon _to perform as a miniature wind machine. They'd taken everything needed from the ship, from food to dishes to inflatable cushions since there'd been little that was salvageable.

On the upside, Leia was sure her brother hadn't been there, since she couldn't imagine him leaving it that way. Outside the winds and frequent sandstorms had obliterated any trace of footsteps, wiped clean any trace of a Y-Wing compacting the ground with its weight. The desert was as timeless as it was quiet.

"So what do you think?" Han asked.

She sipped tentatively from her glass. The pale green Vintaarian wine was sweet and strong enough for her to instantly feel the alcohol. Unfortunately, considering how much Han had paid for it at The Pit, the pronounced smokiness and furry aftertaste disappointed her. "I think you were ripped-off," she declared.

"No, I wasn't." He swiped her glass out of her hands, tipped his head back, and gave a remarkably astute impression of a sommelier, nose half in the glass, mouth partially open, right up to ridiculous faces they always made in order to spread the wine to the various taste-sensitive parts of his tongue. After a quick review of the label, he mumbled, "Damn," and returned the glass. "I bet it's the barrels. The Vintaarian's ran their J'kassi forest down a few decades ago. I bet anything they're still using them to ferment their wine when they should be onto the plexalloy tanks."

"Oh really," she asked, trying to recall if she'd ever heard anything about the Mid-Rim world having a timber crisis. Han was good with wine but not that good. "I believe you just made that up off the top of your head."

He winked. "Maybe, maybe not. I'm not telling." One hand reached over and started winding its way through her unbound hair again. Leia had re-braided it three times today, but Han's favorite pastime was to undo, and her fingers had given up redoing.

"I say _maybe_," she affirmed, scanning the room again to make sure it was in order. Then she glanced over at him and winked.

Her logical brain had short-circuited when it came to him, abdicated all responsibility for her actions. Not five days ago she'd given him her spiel on why they shouldn't be doing this, and here she was, guilty of eschewing her own advice. If thought was what set the sentient beings apart from other lifeforms, than love was what divided the sane and the insane, what made the normally rational completely irrational.

Not that Han was making it all that easy for her to think straight. It was as if he were, in his own way, trying to make up for how he'd treated her over the past few weeks, for her loss, for Luke's absence. He was more attentive and doting than she remembered, spoiling her with dinners and back rubs, breakfast in bed. That afternoon he'd actually lain down with her and taken a nap – a _nap_. She'd been lying there, reveling in the feel of his body against hers, feeling as though she were drinking him in, and she'd tugged his hand over her waist. When she'd awoken, he was still there, snoring softly against her shoulder. She couldn't remember a single time when the hyper-energetic, "I'm going to go berserk if I don't do something" Han Solo had actually lain down in the middle of the day and slept unless he'd been up for over a for day to start with.

He continually surprised her.

They'd found a beat up Nebulox swoop in the cellar. Leia couldn't remember if it had been there or not two years ago but it certainly looked ancient. The windscreen bore a crack down the center and the silver foil engine connector had been spliced. There was no telling how many other problems were waiting beneath the engine's guard. Together they'd hoisted it out and Han had spent the past few afternoons camped in front of the synstone exterior with worn tools and a vow to get the thing working if it was the last thing he did.

Yesterday he'd tossed her a pair of goggles, just as she'd finished reviewing Kadann's writings for what had to be the billionth time. "_Here_."

She'd set down her datareader. "_Here_?"

"_We're going for a ride."_

"We're going for a ride

?" she'd repeated, sincerely thinking there was no way he had possibly repaired the old craft.

Han had misinterpreted her wonder completely, making an apologetic gesture and extending his arm. "_Pardon me. Would you like to come for a swoop ride, Your Highness_?"

He'd looked absurd, pretending to be chivalrous with grease stains on his forehead and shirt.  
She'd laughed and asked him if this was some standard Corellian date.

In return, he'd flashed a smile that was nothing less than devastating and gestured pointedly toward her with his chin. Then he'd told her if he was going to get lucky when they returned, yes it was most definitely a standard Corellian date.

Naturally, Han had turned out to be one hell of a swoop rider. He told her he'd raced 'some' many years ago. It wasn't hard to imagine him as a velocity-junkie in his youth. With her arms wrapped tight around his waist, she watched the caverns and crags of the Jundland Wastes flash by in a blur of perpetual motion, sands and skies. Han took them up several precipitous inclines so fast she had to hold on for dear life to keep from sailing away, then down, dropping so abruptly for a few moments she was weightless, suspended up above the narrow seat in mid-air. He stopped before turning back so that they could switch, but as they unfortunately discovered, trying to accelerate with a man twice her size holding on to her nearly unsaddled them and sent them careening out of control. She settled for riding in front and letting Han reach around her to drive.

All she could think the entire ride back was that she couldn't remember the last time she been so stupidly happy. They'd discussed numerous vacation spots in the past, the romantic and the isolated, the galactic famous resorts and out of the way places. Yet, they'd never had the opportunity to go. Now here they were, at probably the last place in the galaxy she would have chosen to for a vacation, and with gritty sand dusting her, she was blissfully happy.

_Or crazy_…

They'd set no deadline for a departure, to give up on waiting for Luke. Thoughts of her miscarriage, of her daughter were growing less frequent, less painful with every passing day. There were no comlinks, no intrusions, no deadlines, and no schedules to keep. She'd told Han several afternoons ago that she needed him to hold her, and he seemed content to do just that. They didn't discuss their time apart, though Han had taken an intense interest in her relationship with Luke of late. She tried to explain to him about Baskarn.

They were more like new lovers, reticent to say too much aloud, and if their time alone was a winnowing it seemed crucial that they wait. Maybe, Leia thought too, they were both waiting it out to make sure they were capable of forgiving each other before they spoke. Beneath everything, she was hoping so hard that it was more akin to praying. She was hoping so hard, hope upon hope, that they would find a way to fix all of the things that weren't fixable, that they could both forgive the things that weren't forgivable and make the things different that should have been different. She so badly wanted this time to be different. She wanted it so badly she was afraid to say anything at all.

"On second thought, I like the wine," Han was saying. "You just have to get past the initial bite."

The wine's smokiness magically cancelled itself out after a few sips. She concurred. "Almost vintage quality."

"But compared to my nerf tenderloins and redour sauce?"

She grinned. Working beneath the blazing suns had turned him vweliu-nut brown, while her cheeks were still pinkish from their swoop ride the day before. He looked like a pirate or swoop racer, not like the type who fished for compliments for his meals. "Those were excellent. But I'd love to know when the ban on my presence in the kitchen ends."

"Maybe I'll let you move up to observer tomorrow." He pantomimed a rapid chopping motion with his free hand. "How about cutting small vegetables with supervision?"

"It's not like I have anything better to do."

That was rewarded with a long chuckle. He looked infinitely amused.

"I take it back. I forget where you told me you learned to cook."

"How could you forget what I never told you?"

She crossed her arms across her chest. "Tell me."

"All right, all right… My favorite hangout was a kitchen when I was a kid. I got lots of lessons helping in exchange for everything I could eat – believe me that meant a LOT of helping."

"I can't even picture it," she giggled, and really, she couldn't. The image of Han waist-high standing on chairs before the stove materialized. She giggled harder.

He smiled broadly to himself, a remembering the past kind of smile that seldom graced his very guarded features. "She was a Wookiee, and very kind to me." Leia's, "Oh," was interrupted. "Yes, you've just figured out where I acquired my ear for it. Most people never understand it otherwise, unless they spend a lifetime studying it."

Sarin's face flickered briefly across her thoughts, along with the Yrashu he'd called Trickster. "Well, if our paths ever cross I'll have to thank her," she told him. "Your sauce was wonderful."

"I'm sure she would love to hear it if she were still alive."

"I'm sure she would."

It was unusual for her to pick up pieces of what Han was feeling through the Force, his casual sarcasm and ironclad ability to hide anything, even from her, just a few of the barriers she was used to. Nevertheless, there was definitely a terrible sense of grief beneath his words. For a heartbeat, she fought the impulse to go comment on it, opting to go with her instincts the next. "Sounds like she was very special to you?"

"I'm going to clean up," he said curtly, dropping her hair.

"But Han," she began.

"Leia, drop it!"

Stung, she jerked back before he snapped at her again. _What just happened_? The edge of his tone made her think twice about snapping back. _I was just trying to be nice to him. Why does he have to act like such rotten jerk_? Listening to him bang dishes in the kitchen, she glowered at his few belongings in the main room wondering which would annoy him most if she destroyed it. _Jacket or shaving kit or his favorite shirt_…

There was little she knew about Han before their paths crossed, and the man certainly didn't volunteer much about his past. Other than sketchy references to his days in Imperial Service and smuggling tales, he was rather mysterious about it. Once he'd told her he had no parents, no long lost relatives who would leave him any money and a cousin on Corellia he would kill on sight if they ever crossed paths again. Fortunately for the cousin, Han was an odd ex-patriot, devoutly Corellian to the core, so long as he and his home planet kept their distance from one another. Wild stories and exaggerated dogfights, outrunning Star Destroyers, the very frequent, 'oh, I've been there,' when she mentioned worlds and out of the way star systems – those were the only hints he dropped. Beyond that, his personal history was a closed topic.

She had a vivid memory of their first real quarrel after they'd become lovers. He'd told her that after he was nine or so, he'd split his time between his home planet and a starship and done a bit of touring on the galactic scene.

"_Was it some sort of school?_" she'd asked innocently.

Han had responded with, "_No Princess, some of us didn't grow up in palaces with servants waiting on us hand and foot_." It was as though he'd been hydrostatic and suddenly gone combustible, launching into a condescending tirade that had all but named her a spoiled sheltered girl from a cosmopolitan society.

That night he'd stormed off for the first time. It had been awful. Though she'd long forgiven him, she had not forgotten it, though she was supposed to forget. He'd asked her to.

Noticing that she'd unknowingly emptied her wine, she refilled it before Han returned from cleaning up. At the weight of his hand on her shoulder, she stiffened. "Don't."

"I didn't mean to snap at you," he said softly.

"Well it made me feel lousy."

"I know," he sighed, wrapping his arms around her anyway, vine-like muscles relaxed and powerful against her. "I don't want you to feel lousy. I want you to feel good. Talking about stuff like that makes _me _feel lousy."

Her anger melted only slightly. Guilt was something she was all too familiar with, prone to irrational reactions when people tried to make her feel better, but it didn't excuse lashing out at people. She resisted leaning back in his arms. "Then why do you act like that? It was one stupidly mundane question."

"I'm sorry," he started. "It's just that… she died and I don't like to remember it."

The well-intended response made her even angrier. As if he'd forgotten who he was speaking to. "And naturally I couldn't possibly understand what that feels like, right?"

"No." Han sounded sincerely repentant. "I'm sorry. I mean it. Let's let it go. I'm an idiot."

"Yes, you are." She was twenty paces beyond letting it go. She was angry with him for ruining the mood, ruining the peace between them; angry over the memory of a fight that had happened two years ago and all the ensuing ones that resembled it. She was angry with herself for allowing them to go this many days without talking about the past four months. She was furious because Han was obviously waiting for her to bring it up and that was so like him. The discussion was looming over their heads like a dark cloud. When he tried to hug her again she thrust his hands away and clambered from her seat. "Don't!"

"_Now _what did I do?"

"I don't feel like being pawed at right now. That's all you've been doing and I'm sick of it."

"Fine."

She stepped up into the kitchen and hedged her way over to the counter. "Besides, we need to talk about how much longer we should wait for Luke or where to start looking for him."

"Ah… well." He rubbed his chin. "How much longer do you think we should wait?"

"I don't know…"

"We can give him a few more days."

"How many?"

He shrugged. "Three, four-"

"You just don't want to go look for him," she accused.

"That's not true." He ran a weary hand across his face. "Look, if you're trying to pick a fight-"

"I didn't start this."

"I already told you I was sorry."

She shrugged and held her ground. "Maybe it's not good enough."

Han's face darkened and the muscles at the corner of his mouth bunched together. "Leia, what do you want?" Then he groaned. "Whatever. We could never make it more than thirty hours without someone jumping all over one of us. This is probably some sort of record."

"I'm not jumping all over you," she replied curtly. "I'm standing three meters away. And play-acting that we're together doesn't count."

"What are you talking about?"

It began to seem blankly incomprehensible that she was picking a fight with him. She stared at the ceiling, smoke damaged from a few meals that had apparently gone past their time. For the first time since they'd arrived at Tatooine, she allowed herself to remember the day she had discovered he'd left, the following weeks, months. The hurt of old wounds opening was poignant and deep. "I don't know."

"Then why did you say that?"

"I'm not the one who left us," was all that came out.

He let loose an exaggerated sigh. "Okay. You want to talk, let's talk."

"I don't get it," she said. "I know we used to fight, I know sometimes I have a hard time dealing with the past-"

"That's not why I left," he interjected quickly. "It had nothing to do with that."

"But the night you left-"

He cut her off a second time. "You said so yourself a few days ago – we needed some space from each other."

Only she wasn't at all sure that she'd meant it. It had just slipped out, an extremely convenient synopsis mid-conversation. "How could you do it?"

"I thought I was doing the right thing."

"Well was it?"

He said, "I don't know," again.

Then it was all some sort of mistake? It had all been some terrible mistake – some erroneous judgment on his part. When would it happen again? "I can't afford to do this if you don't know," she said quietly. "I can't."

Han swirled the contents of his glass, let them settle, swirled them again and watched. "Why is it that people always define leaving someone as physically going – you hop on a transport, a starship, a cruiser, whatever. I never could follow that. Cause when it comes down to it, Sweetheart, there's really more than one way to leave someone." She started to shake her head but he motioned for her to wait. "No. Don't. You just couldn't see it. You were already out the door."

"_I didn't jump on my ship and take off_."

Han locked his hazel eyes with hers. "Of course not," he reproved sharply. "You're much more sophisticated than that. It's not your style. You'd never stoop to doing something so blatantly obvious!"

"That's not true. Han I _needed _you."

"Gee, lady, when did you figure that out? Huh? Cause it sure wasn't before I left. You might be extremely talented at going through the motions and you might be a great diplomat but you're a lousy liar."

Now she was baffled. "What are you talking about?"

"It is a lie when I ask you what's wrong and you repeatedly tell me nothing. It's a lie when you put on an act so I don't ask you at all. Gods forbid I knew you woke up crying half the time. And yes," he nodded, "now we're venturing into that black hole stuffed with things you don't, won't or can't talk about, that I'm supposed to pretend doesn't exist. It's not a relationship when you decide you have to go through everything alone. It's just sex." He tweaked his glass one last time, set it down and pushed himself up. "I spent enough years of my life playing that game."

Anger crackled through her like electricity. "Lucky for me you got that out of your system," she said sarcastically, gesturing to the scrim that divided the sleeping area from the main room. "Otherwise I might misinterpret what's been going on here."

"If that's all you think this is or ever was between us then you don't know me very well," he growled.

"Maybe I don't," she muttered. "Sometimes I'm not sure that I do. And if you really knew me you would have known how much that would hurt me."

"I know you. I did know how much it would hurt you."

His words hit her with the force of a physical blow. She felt as though he'd slapped her across the face. The words were spoken with such confidence and pride, no trace of penitence. "You're not sorry about it," she snorted derisively, watching his face closely. "I'd swear you almost look proud of yourself. I can't believe you can stand there and act like hurting me is something you're proud of."

"Leia, I'm not…" he began weakly. "It's just that no one's going to win here. Not me, not you."

Suddenly she knew was going to say something horrible and unforgivable and was helpless to prevent it, heard herself speaking. "I guess we're even then."

"Even?"

"Sure." It just came out, fueled by emotions. "You left knowing what it would do to me, huh? Well you know what? I couldn't imagine what would hurt you more; hurt _Han Solo_, than for me to go to bed with someone else." Han's head snapped resolutely and she made sure to look him straight in the eye. "Aren't you even going to ask me how it was?" she said, trying to imitate the sultry voices and cool bravado of the women in second rate starports who called all men _darling _and promised never before discovered pleasures to any man with a hundred credits to burn. "I know it's killing you. Maybe I lied when I said it was only one time. Maybe the entire time you were gone-"

The wall above Ben's ancient stove exploded in a storm of glass and green liquid. Tiny fragments glinted off the sleeve of her tunic, wine splattered across her cheek. She ducked her face to the side, shielded it with her shoulder and closed her eyes, waiting. There was nothing but the sound of the door slamming, and a moment later, the swoop's engine firing up.

Her heart was pounding faster than the wings of a flutter-moth. "Stang," she whispered to herself, not knowing who had just frightened her more, herself or him. There was a recklessness pulsating through her veins she only experienced in the heat of battle, only now it felt twisted, corkscrewed by anger and hurt, so far down everything seemed jumbled up and horrible, hopeless.

_Leia, why did you do that? Why did you say that_?

She followed outside but by then he was so far away she couldn't even be sure which direction he had taken. There was a small measure of comfort to be found in the sight of the _Falcon _a short distance away.

_At least he's not really gone_, she thought. _He has to come back_.

Back inside she changed her tunic and washed her face, inspected her hair for shards of glass. Then she cleaned up all the broken pieces of the wineglass she could spy and began tackling the wall behind the stove.

Scrubbing viciously only lightened the stains and smeared them further and further around. Wine was one of those liquids that tended to stain easily, stain anything, and the coarse pale sandstone might have well as been a canvas for Han's rage. At such close range, it had splattered outward beautifully. Twice spasming aches in her side forced her to catch her breath. She refused to cry.

_Why did you say that?_

Why didn't he have anything else to say

?

All he was doing was accusing her of walking out on their relationship, trying to equate a deliberate act with what, a mood? Maybe it was time she gave up expecting the two of them to find any common ground to make their relationship work accept that it was irremediable. A post mortem autopsy would yield the sort of findings the cynics and lonely hearted adhered to: _See, this is one of those sad examples where two individuals loved each other and love failed to conquer all. It is a myth_. All the people who said they weren't right for each other, that it would never last, they could cash in their bets and see how much they'd won.

He still hadn't returned when she was conceding that the wall was permanently going to remind her of the noxious slime that had oozed off Jabba the Hutt. She grabbed a jacket and went outside to wait, grabbing the remainder of the Vintaarian wine purely as an afterthought. There she sagged under the weight of her own body and shivered in the frosty night air. Her only company burned down the back of her throat and warded off chill as effectively as the extra clothing.

She waited over an hour for him.

When Han finally did return, it was on foot, and she didn't hear him until he burst out of the shadows. "You're going to wind up with hypothermia if you stay out here all night. I can hear your teeth chattering a parsec away."

"Where's the swoop?"

"You should get inside."

"Where's the swoop?"

"You're cold."

"I'm not cold," she lied. "Go away."

"Yeah, right." He stooped down (she thought, oddly to kiss her, so she ducked away) but he only grabbed her hand and dragged her to her feet and into Ben's. In the light, he didn't look as though he'd had an unpleasant collision with a rock or a cliffside. His hair was wild, and his cheeks were flushed from windburn. That was it. He let go of her hand and she snapped, "Thanks a lot."

"Did you mean what you said before?"

"What about what you said? I expect something better than 'I don't know,' and 'I'm not sure if it was the right thing to do or not.'"

His mouth pressed tight and his eyes flashed with an anger that promised more than threats. Like a predator trapping his prey, he interposed himself along the route back to the door lest she try to go back outside. "That's not what I asked you."

"_Ooooh… _You can't bully me Han! It's none of your business besides. Go find some other inanimate machine to have it out with. Tackle a moister vaporator for all I care." Feeling terribly undignified sprawled on the floor, she scrambled to her feet, surprised to find herself slightly unsteady. She gingerly picked her way over to the dinner table and immediately wished she'd stayed on the floor: sitting on chairs involved motor control, or at least a functioning equilibrium. Carefully steepling her hands above her elbows to stay balanced, she centered her gaze on the wall straight ahead of her. "You were gone. You never messaged, not even once. Not to tell me when you'd be coming back. I had to find that out from Madine."

"Well neither did you."

"Then we're even again."

Han gritted his teeth, and then dropped the menacing posture. "Leia you would have told me to go eventually the way we were going. I thought the only way we had a chance-"

"Was if you tried to control us, throw out ultimatums. 'Leia, let's take a break or else I'm outta here'. That's what you did!"

"It wasn't about control. I know you don't believe me – or you don't _want _to believe me or see it but we were headed down a road I know too well. You started with your brother-"

"I did no such thing!"

"Yeah, you _did_. You cut him out of your life, bit by bit, granted he didn't do a hell of a lot to help but I watched it happen. I kept my mouth shut. And then those little signs started creeping their way into us."

"Or you imagined them," she fired back defensively. It didn't matter that she might have admitted as much about Luke. Her brother was different.

"You know what?"

"What's that?"

"I don't know how to fix this if all you want are apologies. I really, really don't. I thought we could just start from here, where we are. 122 days was a long time for us to be apart and I thought it'd been good these last few days…"

_He counted the days_?

"So if 'us' going anywhere rests on me saying I'm sorry a hundred times, well…"

She watched him swallow, still thinking, _122 days…he knows the days_...

"Tell me now so we can end this here and now."

"No."

"No?"

She couldn't decide if she loved him or hated him. "It doesn't."

Han softened, his eyes warming. "Leia, believe me when I say I didn't want to hurt you. It would have been you sooner or later. I know what I saw coming"

"And what precisely was that?"

"You, trying damn hard to convince yourself you didn't need anyone. Now and again, you almost had me convinced. And I bet deep down inside you tell yourself you just don't trust me but it's not me you don't trust Leia. I _do _know you. I know you better than your brother, twin bonds and all, better than anyone." With that he crossed the room to his satchel and withdrew a bottle of whiskey she'd last seen in the _Falcon's _galley, saying casually, before making himself at home on the floor, "You know you're the third woman I've ever been in love with."

No preamble, no lead-in. "Uh huh," she mumbled, suddenly confused, at a loss as to where this was headed.

"Cheers." He took a long draught straight from the bottle and _ahhed_.

The 'cheers' sounded woefully misplaced slam in the center of their quarrel. _Three_? A million questions screamed through her mind like panicked hawk-bats. Han asked her a question, from far away. _Was she drunk_? Affronted, she carefully straightened her spine and paid extra attention to her diction. "Of course not," she replied, though the empty container outside was evidence enough to the contrary, and he'd probably seen it. "I'm perfectly sober. So what happened?"

"To what?"

"You said I'm the third woman you've ever been in love with. What happened with them, the other two?"

"I'm a moody bastard. They couldn't take it after a while."

"I can certainly sympathize. That doesn't surprise me a bit."

"Well, I didn't think it would."

"Why really?"

"Why really what?"

"Did things end with them?"

He started shaking his head, and then switched to a single nod. The single nod was punctuated by a long perusal of her person. Again, she was extra careful with her mannerisms, her hands, and her posture. At long last he said, "They had their own problems."

"They did?"

"Sure. One of them lost her entire family to the Empire – husband, children. After that…" He shrugged noncommittally, making it impossible for her to guess how many emotions had been invested in the particular relationship. "I guess she couldn't handle letting anyone get too close to her. We were together and eventually it became too much for her. That's when it was time for her to go."

"Were you with her for a long time?"

"Xaverri? Not more than a year."

_Xaverri_. The name branded itself to her memory like red-hot steel on bare flesh. She wondered if she would be overstepping her bounds if she pried more, then decided to heck with it. It was so seldom that Han opened up to her that she felt she had the right to pry away guiltlessly. If she hadn't earned that right by now, she never would. "And the other one?"

"I don't talk about the other one," he informed her.

She clamped her teeth down on the tip of her tongue, and then asked anyway, "Is she dead?"

"She's dead."

"I'm sorry."

Han lay on his back and folded his arms behind his head so that she couldn't see his expression. Despite his affirmation that he didn't talk about her, he kept going. "You wouldn't believe what people get into out there trying to make the universe make sense. Stupid, stupid..." He sighed mournfully. "You name it, I think I've seen it."

"I believe you there." The 'believe' was interspersed with a hiccup, but she managed to suck it in and keep the heaving of her body quiet. She doubted there was little he hadn't seen.

Han kept going. "She was fucked up because she was fine and she kept trying to convince herself she was still fucked up. She didn't believe me, she wouldn't have believed anyone." He did a half sit-up so that he could make eye contact. "When I saw her again she was working for the Rebellion, incidentally, running the Corellian underground. She wound up another Alliance martyr."

"She died working for _us?_"

"She died for what she believed in," he replied, with a definite air of finality. "Your organization didn't have a high survival rate in those days."

"No."

"Another statistic," he concluded.

One had lost everyone she cared about to the Empire; another had given her life for the Rebellion. Leia knew better than to ask more or why, though she felt more than a little uncomfortable by the similarities between both of these women, though they may have been solely surface comparisons. That didn't matter though. She didn't want to be _like _anyone else he'd ever cared about, though perhaps this sudden burst of honesty revealed more about Han than herself, in a roundabout sort of way. Her addled senses struggled to put everything in context. "So that's your thing then?"

"What's my thing?"

"You're attracted to wounded women who are walking emotional disasters waiting to explode all over you, love being there to pick up the pieces when their lives go to blazes?"

He laughed and patted the floor beside him. "No, not at all. I like my women smart, beautiful, quick with a comeback, good to have at my side in a fight, tougher than neutronium."

She rolled her eyes. "No. I'm listening, not going over there. And I think that is your thing." It made her, not jealous exactly but rather uncomfortable because she didn't know enough to know if she should be jealous or not. Han never gave her enough information. It wasn't a stretch to picture him with women dangling off his arms left, right and center and she was shrewd enough assume 'women he'd been in love with', and 'women he'd _been _with', were two entirely different categories. "What about the other ones?"

"What other ones?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Three?"

"Three?"

"You've only loved three women? What about the ones you didn't?"

"What about them?"

"Weren't any of them important to you?"

"Some of them, yes, most of them, no."

"How many women are we talking about?"

"A few."

"A few how many?"

"A few I can't even remember them all and why are you asking me this?" He caught the burgeoning incredulity on her face. "Oh, Sweetheart, sex happens when it happens. It's a big universe and there are a lot of women out there. Sometimes I invested time and energy, other times I just went along for the ride. I never implied that I lived the way your brother does way back when."

"And does your Corellian-bred attitude to casual sex ring true only for men or do they have double standards a parsec wide?"

The tense, menacing glare returned. "Is _what's-his-name _important to you?"

"We're not talking about _me_. We're talking about you."

"Oh, of course," he replied, his tone cold again. "But see you're not Corellian, and I've _never _slept with anyone to purposely hurt anyone else."

Remorse washed over her. It wasn't true but it had been flung at him to purposely hurt him. She supposed saying it and not doing it should have spared her an iota of guilt but it felt the same. "I didn't mean it, what I said before."

Han exhibited no relief, but he said, flicking his hand carelessly in her direction without looking at her. "Good."

Leia had no idea if either of them was making headway, but at least their arguing had settled into a discussion of sorts, albeit a disturbing discussion. No one was throwing fifty credit glasses of wine and painting the walls a ghastly lime green. "I want to get this straight," she told him. "You're trying to enlighten me as to why you left and somehow it's come full circle to _you _having _issues _with women leaving you in the past."

Han looked at her as though she'd lost her mind. "No."

"Then I must be hearing you wrong." She rubbed the side of her temple and squinted. The balance problem hadn't improved and paying careful attention to everything he kept telling her was taking most of her concentration.

"I know you wonder. I know I don't tell you much."

"Oh." So _this _was Han's reaction to the after-dinner fiasco. It was recognition on his part. It was progress, although it was still akin to pulling out his toenails to get him to talk. That or it was a strategic topic change to get off his leaving and steer clear of the deep seeded part of her that wanted to hate him. She wanted to hate him. And to love him to pieces. It was hard to decide.

In return, Han patted the empty space beside him, and yet again, she shot him a look of placid indifference. "You're wrecking my floor party," he informed her sullenly, turning onto his side. He stretched and ran his fingers through his hair, scratched the side of his neck, gave the floor one more pat.

"Tell me something else," she suggested, trying relentlessly to sound casual. Any second now she half expected him to start crooning, "Come here, come here," in falsetto as though she were a lost pitten or equally easy-to-lure pet.

"Like what?"

"Anything. You pick."

Han deferred to the whiskey's label as though it held a clue to his past and grinned magnificently. "I pulled in top scores in transfinite hyperspacial mathematics and the physics of astrogation at the Academy. Top one percent of my class."

Leia was dumbfounded. "On Carida?"

"On Carida," he reaffirmed. "Hey. You actually look impressed. Now that I've let you in on how much of a genius I actually am, please don't tell anyone in command when we get back."

She heard herself laugh in spite of herself and weakened slightly. As usual, Han was working at deflating the situation altogether. She wasn't ready to move past their argument but she no longer wanted to be angry with him and had a sudden craving to be nearer. "You look impressed enough with yourself for both of us."

"Now you have to come over here."

"Says who?"

"It was directly implied. I said, 'come over here,' you said, 'tell me something else,' and I did. Now your end of the bargain is to accept my invitation." Han started laughing to himself. "And if you don't I'm going to come after you and you're not going to like that."

Leia knew he would. Additionally, she was starting to feel dehydrated from the wine, too weary to keep this up. Knowing she would regret this later, she gave in and went to curl on the floor beside him. Han pressed an initiative mouthful of whisky on her, and she took a deep breath before she let the rounded edge touch her lips, saying, "To those of us that died fighting for what we believed in."

Han caught her wrist tightly before she could drink. "Nah. Don't do that. Everyone dies sometime. Drink to those of us that actually lived."

"Okay. To those of us that made it," she assented, swallowing and waiting out sensation that her insides were burning through her ribcage. Then she replaced the cap, set it above their heads, and rested her head on her arm.

"I mean no one ever does it," Han added, quietly curiously. "Why do we always drink to dead people?"

The answer was lost in her perusal of the tiny holes freckling the front of his shirt, no doubt due to a piece of the _Falcon's _equipment exploding. "So now what?" she asked him.

Han worked a hand beneath her tunic and began rubbing her back in circles. "You tell me."

"I hate fighting with you when it's like that."

"Then we should stop." He appeared to rethink that. "Then again… You know when we're old and grey and in the old spacer's retirement home someday, we'll probably be dreaming of our battles. _You'll _miss them." The words sounded so nonchalant and natural coming out of his mouth. _When we're old and grey… when we're old and grey_… Not as though it _might _happen, but as though it _would _happen, as if he knew for sure. He eased a leg over hers as if to trap her. "The make-up sex is what I'm getting at," he explained.

She smiled and rested her chin on her elbow so that their faces were inches apart. "Who says I'm going to be in the old spacer's home with you? And we're not made up; we're just talking. I'm only listening to you."

For a moment they lay like that. Then he said, "I'm not going to let you get away so easily, whatever you're thinking. Not ever."

Trying to clear her head with a few deep breaths, her gaze darted across his features in disbelief. "Look Han, that's funny considering you-"

"_Love _you. I _love _you."

"You..." She closed her eyes and butted her head against his shoulder in frustration. Count on Han to be saying the right things when she least expected it. Count on Han to be as unpredictable as his ship's hyperdrive. She gave up. Han started to pull her on top of him with the room going all topsy-turvy and she heard herself saying, "I love you too."


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

* * *

The Y-Wing settled on solid ground just as the first of Tatooine's suns was making its ascent. The Jedi removed his helmet, peeled off his gloves, toggled the switches and slumped his head forward over the console. He needed to get out of his ship. He needed air. He needed to sleep. He needed to eat. Drawing on the Force to survive for this many days was dangerous, almost suicidal, and he knew it. The Force's generosity might be boundless, but his bodies' ability to subsist on it alone was limited. This was as long as he'd ever gone without the basics that kept a human body alive.

He had no idea how many days he'd been on Dagobah, meditating, praying, calling for his former master or teacher to answer him. No one had. This was the last place he'd known to come. He felt like a wounded animal licking his wounds and crawling home to die. Grief, guilt, shame – they were diminished in the absence of cognition, of memory, but that only served to confound his confusion.

Without further delay he released the cockpit hatch and allowed first dawn's bite to revive him. It was in the process of snatching the crispness from the air. Within a few hours both suns would blaze and waves of intense heat would be billowing across the desert, scorching aerobic lungs and leeching every ounce of moisture from the surface. He recalled the looming unpleasantness without dwelling on it, gazing briefly overhead at the dusty pink skies. Then he staggered down from the cockpit, and began stumbling the hundred meters to Ben's abode.

The only person he knew would have answered was here already, waiting for him. He hadn't yet made it to the doorway when she burst out and flung her arms about him. The relief at not being alone anymore was so intense he buried his face in her hair so that she wouldn't see he was crying.

"I knew you'd come," she kept saying. "I knew you would."

_How_? he wondered. He hadn't known. He wasn't sure at what part of his journey he'd set course for this destination.

It wasn't until he heard her asking Han to help her that he realized his legs weren't holding him up any more. "Let's get you inside. You need to rest. Everything is going to be all right."

* * *

Han finished tightening the fasteners on his left boot and looked up in time to give Leia a questioning glance. The divider swung back gently into place behind her.

"He's already asleep," she said.

It didn't surprise him. Her brother looked as though he'd been nesting with gundarks and losing out on the competition for food. He'd never seen Luke with a full-grown beard either. That, combined with the bright medcenter wear poking through the neck of the jumpsuit made him look like a very disturbed individual, one perhaps recently escaped from the local 'borderline sentient' ward. "Did he tell you anything?"

"No. He's in no condition to talk now. We don't know what he's been through since he left Baskarn."

"No, no we don't," he said, thinking that at least Luke looked more inclined to bump into a wall and knock himself out than hurt either of them. Lest she latch onto his subtext, and to ease the worry lines on her forehead he added, "But he's here, like you said. That's a good thing."

"Yes," she sighed. "Yes it is." Her gaze landed on his boots. "Where are you going?"

He said, "We need more blankets, another pallet – if there are any more." There was no spaceport out here, and the thundering roar of a Y-Wing flying overhead this early in the morning was quite possibly the most obnoxious wake-up call he'd had in months. Beating the suns up had not been his intention.

"We do need those," she replied. "Good thinking."

Taking in the circles under her eyes, Han paused. On any other occasion he would have expected her to be jumping up and down with joy at her brother's arrival. Currently, jumping up and down was out of the question. Other than slightly tipsy on a few occasions he'd actually never seen Leia drunk as a Corellian pilot, as the expression went (though he thought it more of a prejudicial exaggeration). This was also not the first time he'd assisted a Skywalker in the joys of excess alcohol consumption, though fortunately last evening had not ended with a head over a receptacle. Of course, he'd taken a vow that involved threats to his ship and hyperdrive system to never breathe a word of that to anyone.

He asked, "How are _you _feeling?"

"Awful. Horrendous. Like my head is going to split apart." Leia groaned and held her temples in both hands, as though it would keep it together, teetering slightly. "Just tell me I don't look as bad as I feel."

"You? Never. But next time you try to consume your weight in alcohol…"

"Don't say it. No. No. There will never be a next time. I barely remember going to bed."

Han slipped his hands beneath her hair and began massaging her neck. "You conked out just when things started getting interesting."

She sighed appreciatively. "Interesting?"

"Sure. You wanted me to teach you all the words to the Corellian Pilot's Anthem. We only got to the third verse-"

She winced. "My memory is better than that."

"Darn." He leaned down to kiss her forehead. "There're a few antidotes on the _Falcon_. I'll get you something."

"That would be wonderful. I don't want to feel like this when he wakes up."

* * *

The first time he awoke, in a sleep weary haze, Luke thought he heard his aunt and uncle speaking in hushed voices outside his bedroom. A cool hand smoothed the sweaty strands of hair off of his forehead and a soothing voice asked him if he needed anything. He drank the sweetened water proffered to him, rolled over and went back to sleep. The second time he awoke he was upside down on a pile of inflatable cushions that were in the midst of an appalling divorce. One elbow and both knees were poking through the cracks. His other elbow touched the floor. The cushion had plastered itself to his face, hissing quietly when he shifted his neck. It was deflated enough that his upper body lay on a downward slope.

There were voices coming through the slatted vents, a series of loud _zap-zaps _he identified as blaster fire and howls. Instinctively his body tensed but he realized the raucous howling was laughter.

"Hah! That's five for five."

"It was _not_! The last two were together. It was four shots."

"Four shots, five targets – same difference. That's why they call it random target selection, honey. If they want to kiss in the air, it's not my fault if one took the other out."

A woman made a sound that resembled a frustrated nuna's squawk, then mumbled, "Best two out of three then?"

Half tumbling, half scrambling off the cushions, Luke kicked off the partially undone jumpsuit he'd taken from one of the guards outside the medcenter. Next to the foot of the collapsing bed was a pile of clean clothes that had actually belonged to him once upon a time, an old pair of black trousers and wrap shirt. It took a moment for him to remember how many months it had been since he'd seen the items last. Han's ship invariably ended up storing bits and pieces of everyone who traveled on it extensively.

He ascertained immediately that he was too weak and wobbly legged to do much without eating and too filthy to change without showering. Limping his way to the kitchen, he discovered concentrated soup stock left warming on the stove. He ate it straight out of the pot with the serving spoon. It might have been their dinner, or leftovers, but his stomach hurt so badly he couldn't wait. He ate propped up against the narrow counter space, studying his former mentors abode. It wasn't that different from how he remembered it, though it appeared to have been rearranged. A broken bench was tipped up against the wall, beside it rested a broken chair and a crate of broken dishes.

When his shrunken stomach could hold no more he made his way into the shower cubicle. Too shaky to stand, Luke settled on the tiles beneath the blasting spray, resting his cheek against the cool metal siding. The heated water felt like a thousand needles stabbing his flesh at first, but within minutes the sting was replaced by a bone deep relaxation. He rested until the tiny stall had been converted into a Calamarian deptonic infusion tank and his skin was patchy red.

The target practice was still underway by the time he was out and dressed, so he went to watch and rejoin the living, hanging back in the shade. It didn't take most offworlders long to figure out that if there was any fun to be had on Tatooine they had to invent themselves. All the fun he'd had growing up had involved racing or firing at targets. If he'd stayed longer he supposed frequenting the Anchorhead Cantina would have followed.

"Last shot," Han was saying. "You miss this and I win. You get it, we're in…" He lowered his voice dramatically. "The first sudden death overtime."

"Hey _hotshot_, this isn't smashball and I can keep track of the score on my own."

"Whatever you say, Sweetheart. Now quit with the delay tactics. They're not gonna save you this time."

Leia was too intent on following the dancing chrome remote and lining up her shot to notice his movement behind them. Han however, did notice, purposely waiting until her finger started to snap down on the press plate before he shouted, "Luke! You're finally awake!"

Predictably, her shot went a few hairs wild. The remote plummeted safely to a new position, hovering untagged.

"Nice move," Luke commented dryly, striding over to them.

Han shrugged. "It's every life-form for himself. What can I say?"

"You have to cheat to win," Leia suggested helpfully.

_Your daughter_, he thought at her, swallowing hard. She was smiling at him warmly. Her slim cut fatigues were rolled up above her knees; her pale lawn tunic was wrist length and tied at the waist with a scrap of fabric. A matching piece of fabric held back her hair, though a few tendrils had strayed. Her skin glowed with a sheen of perspiration, golden hued. She looked healthy and relaxed, no longer as gaunt and fatigued as he remembered her being on Baskarn.

She looked _happy_.

"You found the things I left out for you?" she asked.

"Yes, thanks. And the soup – if that was for me."

"Who else? See any other sleeping Jedi around here?" Han asked gruffly. "You know, the kind that sleep so long their sisters wander in and out every two hours to make sure they're still breathing…"

"It hasn't been that long." Luke checked the skies and saw that it was late afternoon. It was sunrise-"

"Yesterday."

"_Yesterday_?"

"Yesterday. And today – though you missed the lovely event second time around." Solo's expression remained amused, and Luke imagined the man's mind was running amok with witty remarks about sleeping Jedi. Briefly, he thought of his fist, flying at him not all that long ago, and wondered whether the jocular brevity of this reunion was for his benefit or for Leia's. Before he'd come to any conclusion, Han said, very solemnly, "I have only one question for you."

He forced back his apprehension. _You know you're going to have to answer a lot of questions_… "Which is?"

"Distractions don't count, do they? Tell your sister she lost fair and square."

"Ah… If it was a real groundfight…" he began, because that was the way one always concluded the training sessions and addressed the fatal combat errors a trainee had made. Training guidelines, including those that had been in place on the Folor simulators, supported Han. The opportunity to make a clear shot while not under pressure was a rare occurrence. On the downside, Han's propensity to gloat could be god-awful to deal with.

The bumbling prelude was easily interpreted by the victor. "Ha, ha, ha."

"Thanks a lot, Luke," Leia grumbled, shooting Han a very effective look of withering consternation.

"Thanks a lot Luke," Han repeated, but his tone bounced merrily up and down with an entirely different form of sarcasm than his opponent's. He waited until she'd leaned over to set down her weapon to wink, and Luke knew they were allies again, or at least no longer enemies. He shuffled his feet, waiting to obliquely send an apology to Leia for siding with an obnoxious spacecaptain whose poor sportsmanship often rivaled his hirsute co-pilot's, but Han didn't turn away as he gathered the remotes up. Instead, he said loudly, "I'm gonna bring all this stuff back to the _Falcon _before the sand does its dirty work and think about what to bet on for our rematch. In fact, I'm going to think about what I want for winning this one."

"_As if_," Leia scoffed. "Hoth will be listed as tropical in your Spacer's Guide first."

"Yeah, yeah," Han groused, "We'll see about that. And Luke. I explained to her that grown men don't like to be watched when they're sleeping. She wouldn't believe me."

Without further fanfare or dispute he left them alone, leaving Luke with the distinct impression his departure had been pre-planned, and Leia somewhat flustered in his wake. "Well I was worried about you. I was afraid you'd stopped... breathing or something. I was just making sure."

"I'm still breathing." He rapped on his chest and hyperventilated noisily. "Hear that?"

"Yes." She gestured to the doorway. "Do you want to go in?"

Before they reached Ben's table he caught his twin in his embrace. There were much more pressing matters to apologize for, a thousand regrets. No words were needed. Leia wept a little, swiping at her eyes with her fingertips when they finally parted. Luke rested his palms along the outside of her upper arms. "You look good," he said. "I wasn't sure what to expect, how you'd be doing but you do."

"Thanks. You look... a _heck _of a lot better than yesterday," she returned weakly.

"I knew what happened when I came to," he explained. "They told me about the stun blast."

"I know."

"I'm so sorry. I don't even know how to begin to tell you how sorry I am."

"It wasn't your fault, Luke," she hushed. "Whatever you think, it wasn't."

None of her assurances were going to ameliorate his shame or guilt. "Had I been with you... I might not have been the one who fired at you but I wasn't _there_. I left you and if I'd stayed it never would have happened. You don't know how much I hate myself for that. I don't even know how to ask for your forgiveness."

"There's no need," she maintained. "It wasn't your fault."

"But Leia-"

"It _wasn't_." She fidgeted out of his grasp and took a deep breath, her mien hastily back under control, making a retreat that was both physical and emotional. "Stop. It wasn't. Whether or not you'd been there, stayed with me, turned away - it wouldn't have made a difference. Nothing would have made a difference. Nothing anyone could have done would have made a difference. I still would have lost her."

"What do you mean?"

She exhaled laboriously and reached up to untie her hair, running her fingers along the nape of her neck to free the kinks. "Look, you may as well know there was... an _irregularity _with my blood and my immune system. It was only developing when you were with me – still relatively benign, but… Luke, I would have miscarried within the next month or two. There wasn't anything anyone could have done."

"How serious is it?"

"It's not. Not any more. I've been treated for it and given a clean bill of health."

Luke launched into a series of questions trying to get the specifics out of her, but all she would say was that she was fine, and that there was no chance of the condition reoccurring in the future. She promised half a dozen times, ultimately putting her foot down firmly. "We need to talk about you first and worry about me later. Where have you been and do you have any idea how worried I've been? You didn't even reach out once to let me know you were okay!"

"I couldn't."

"_Why_?"

"I needed to be alone."

Eye's blazing, Leia's bared her anger nakedly to him. "You could have told me that. You could have given Han a message. You could have acknowledged me once when I reached out to you so that I wouldn't have been terrified that something awful had happened to you. You could have just once-"

He broke in. "I knew you wouldn't understand-"

"You never gave me a chance to understand."

"It wasn't a decision I had much time to think about," he sighed. "It was an impulse. I only had a few minutes with Han... " There was a soft click the back of his mind, an insight. "I wasn't intentionally planning to hurt you or make you feel as though I'd abandoned you. That was never my intention and I'm sorry if I did. I'm here now with you."

She nodded, somberly. "I know that."

Attempting to steer the conversation back on course, he said, "I'm astutely guessing Han managed to dodge security on Baskarn."

The tight line of Leia's mouth reluctantly curved, building until she laughed softly. "He tricked me into it. I had no idea what was going on until we were on board the _Falcon _and he was shouting at me to fire at the generators."

"I asked him to."

"I had a feeling... Han told me that you can't remember anything."

"The first memory I have after leaving you in the forest is of lying on the ground. Of lying on the ground and feeling like my side and my leg were on fire. I tried to roll over and I couldn't. I never... I never even saw the bodies. Other than that... I remember it all going... _dark_." Luke paced to the recessed doorway, staring long beyond across the dunes. Han was nowhere in sight. His Y-Wing, a lump of beige far off in the distance, had been covered with camouflage netting. "I heard the tapes. I know my own voice."

"Luke, I heard them too and-"

His voice was a monotone. "We both know what happened down there."

"No we don't. You didn't do it. Luke, whatever happened, it's only the tip of the iceberg. There's more going on here-"

"Yes, there is. Don't think I don't know that." He'd failed again, through fault of recklessness, by refusing to heed a warning. These were experiences with which he was intimately familiar, only now he'd lost more than a hand. The joy over his reunion, so vivid when he'd first awoken was wearing thin already.

For so many years he'd thought that Tatooine represented his exiled childhood, that it was the furthest thing from the center of the universe and he'd escaped. Here he was again. It was beginning to feel more like a _place _he was destined to return to again and again. At present his primary option was to turn himself in to the New Republic and pleading for leniency. He'd thought about it, almost non-stop since leaving Baskarn, but he wasn't sure that he could do it. As guilty as he felt a huge part of his logical mind protested that he could not be guilty for what he had no recollection of. The Force had proved to be an unwilling judge and jury; it had yet to deliver a verdict. He was beginning to conclude that he'd be better off hiding out. As he was, he was of little use to anyone, of little use to the future.

Maybe he'd wind up becoming like Ben. No one would ever find him _here_. That was for certain. Looking around the interior of the dwelling and trying to picture it as his permanent home, he said," It's ironic, isn't it?"

Leia regarded him, perplexed. "What is?"

"That this is where I always end up, on the planet I was born. Full circle. Just like..." He shrugged. "Actually, I don't even know if I was born here. I could have been born on Coruscant or Alderaan."

"Just like after Bespin," she finished. "That's what you were going to say, isn't it?"

He shrugged again. "You know me too well."

"That wasn't a failure, Luke. It was learning the hard way, and you did learn. You're a better man for it, a _Jedi_."

This sort of talk wasn't going to help him. "Leia, I don't mean to come across as ungrateful or impolite but I'm not in mood for any of Bail Organa's old sayings. Not today."

"I'm going to forget you said that," she admonished. "And it's not Bail talking, it's _me_. As well, you're wrong about what I'm getting at." Rising to fetch a beat-up knapsack behind the folded sleeproll, she carried it over to the table and withdrew four datapads. "Han and I have managed to unearth quite a bit of relevant information." She pointed to a chair. "So I suggest you get comfortable and prepare yourself to listen to me, because this will take a while."

Shortly, his head was spinning with an information overload of monumental proportions. Leia explained to him what they'd learned on Elrood, covering the Royal Imperial Guard, the Supreme Prophet Kadann, and the last transmission from the _Death Star_ over Endor. Though the individual saboteurs of the _Razion's Edge _remained anonymous, at least there was evidence indicating he had been set-up, though they had no hard evidence to go by as of yet. Leia had been unable to contact Home Fleet lest she tip them off to her whereabouts, but assured him that Harkness had been entrusted to brief Airen Cracken and carry a message from her. By the time they did return to Coruscant, she hoped hard evidence would have been secured.

(Luke was familiar with Harkness, recalling that Harkness had been one of Airen Cracken's key informants up until a few years ago; he'd seen the name in a number of sensitive files. He hadn't known that he was coincidentally one of Solo's old smuggling friends.)

Leia told him about her theory regarding the creation of the Force detectors and about what they might have been researching on Baskarn. She told him about the fate of the Korriban station, that she and Han had forwarded the coordinates of the _Razion's Edge _to Major Risken afterwards, and that any ground investigations should have been completed. Their best running theory as of late was that whoever had 'informed' SpecForce about who Anakin Skywalker had become would lead them straight back to the Royal Imperial Guard.

Leia paused mid-thought going over their theory and said one name. "Sarin?"

The Jedi squeezed his eyes tightly shut, shook his head.

_You didn't listen to her._

No, he didn't

.

"Luke, is he alive?"

He grit his teeth, grateful she had not asked if he killed him, frustrated, angry even, that it didn't matter because either question wrung out an identical responses. "I don't know."

She lifted her eyes earnestly and moved the topic forward. "I need to ask you a few questions. First off, did you request the central access codes before we left for Baskarn?"

He scratched at where his collar was rubbing against his bare skin, feeling impatient. Having nothing to do with the _Razion's Edge's _sabotage was one thing; lined up beside his other offenses it was almost silly, a redundant worry. "Is this important? It was over a month ago?"

"SpecForce thought it was. It's their trump card."

"Ah... "He thought back to that morning. "Yes, I did. The _Razion's Edge's _dummy cargo manifesto was missing. I commed Intelligence from the cargo bay and asked them to send a new one, but the Commander on duty knew me and simply gave me the codes. I printed it off from a secure terminal at the back of the bay." Luke frowned. "Come to think of it, it wasn't exactly a request but..."

Leia sniffed made a disapproving face. "He violated security by giving the command codes out over the comm. Whoever was in charge probably made it sound as though you dropped by and made a formal request. Okay, that clears that up. Next question; Does the name 'Niras Alia Qu'aristoff' mean anything to you?"

"Should it?"

"Just wrack your brain and think first. Then I'll tell you."

He scanned his memory swiftly. He was usually good with both names and faces. Someone he'd served with? Had they met? A famous name in the news? Actor? Politician? "No," he said finally. "I've never heard of him. Should I have?"

"In my research I didn't run across any Sarins in the records from Yashuvhu, but there was a _Niras_. They're anagrams. And interestingly enough, Niras served as one of Palpatine's advisors on Coruscant for almost a decade. He also disappeared near the end of the purges, near to the same time Sarin told us he was brought to Baskarn."

"Then he didn't give us his real name?" he said, unable to concede that the golden-eyed healer had been in league with the Emperor. It couldn't be true, Luke thought, though his muddied brain quickly pointed out that it might also make sense. Maybe that's why he'd never left Baskarn.

"I don't think so. Call it a hunch or a gut instinct but…" Leia chewed her lower lip. "No. All indications are that Niras was Palpatine's stand-in, his speechwriter, his voice in absentia, his understudy. None of it fits with anything Sarin told us about his life and he certainly had no reason to lie to us. If he'd repented he certainly wouldn't have been the first, and if he'd wanted to destroy us he had ample opportunity." Her eyes narrowed. "You always tell me to trust my feelings and I am. I'm positive they're not the same person, but I believe they knew each other. There has to be some significance to their names. I simply haven't been able to figure it out yet."

"He's tied to me? You asked if I've ever heard of him."

Leia stared at him unblinking. "Kadann's writings claim Niras Qu'aristoff will be reborn. Jai told me he's the one mentioned in Kadann's writing. Specifically, what it says is that you will be reborn and claim his name."

"Me? _Claim _his name?"

"Maybe... maybe the way Anakin Skywalker called himself Darth Vader. I've gone over the writings dozens of times and I've only been able to come up with one possibility."

What Leia laid out for him over the next while was utterly inconceivable. "But it's impossible."

"What about on Cirpacous?" she demanded. "You called yourself Ben Kenobi."

He shook his head. "No I didn't."

"I _heard _you."

_Heard what_, he puzzled. They'd had this discussion before, though not in many years. He remembered the battle vividly, facing Vader for the first time alone. There'd been an incredible rush of the Force, a blinding sense of power, and then Vader, his father-to-be, had fallen. It had all flashed by in seconds. He'd been lucky, a novice who'd not had the training to succeed against a Sith lord. Of course explaining to his sister that her memory might deceive her, that with the burns and lacerations she'd suffered, even if she had been conscious, she'd probably been in shock, was out of the question. Leia's mind once made up was tougher to budge than a worn-out Tauntaun.

"I heard you _then_," she repeated. "And it's never been worth obsessing over until now; it's never even mattered that you _don't _remember it. My point is that I believe Obi-Wan Kenobi aided you through means that may be beyond our comprehension. And let's not forget that Sarin told you the Emperor's soul, his spirit, was still out there, that nothing truly dies within the Force. If I believe what I heard on Mimban and I believe what Sarin told us then it stands to reason that there are forces out there capable of controlling another being, even for a short period of time." Sliding her fingertips across the table's coarse finish and rising off of her seat, she spoke softly. "Kadann says a terrible act precedes your fall. We've got one. Let's not forget many of the Jedi who passed years ago may have been more powerful than you are, even in death. We don't know what we're dealing with."

_This is absurd, this is ludicrous_, he thought. "Leia-"

"We know Sarin was protecting us from something in there. He spent a great deal of time, in retrospect – if you reflect on it now - dropping hints, saying Palpatine still existed somewhere out there. You can't remember what happened to you. You can't remember what happened to the teams. I submit that you can't remember because you ceased to be you for a short period of time. I believe there's some credence to be found in Kadann's prophecies, and if I do, I believe that Niras became you, that he was what Sarin was protecting us from all along. What other answer could there be?" she pleaded. "I can't think of anything other alternative and I know you didn't do it. I'm right. I have to be."

"I want to believe I didn't do it," he said. And he did. This was all so fantastically plausible, frighteningly beyond the scope of Yoda's training, but definitely plausible. The thought stretched out into a suspended silence. It was tempting to believe her, easier to believe her than accept full responsibility for the murders on Baskarn, if he could ultimately be held responsible for acts committed that he had no recollection of. On Dagobah he'd exhausted all Force assisted means to tap into his subconscious, sift his memories. All extraneous unknowns aside, his wounds might have driven whatever was controlling him _out_. Untreated the blaster shots would have proved fatal. To make matters even more cogent, Leia could pinpoint her renewed sense of him to the same moment he'd suffered his injuries.

He'd _returned_, from wherever it was that he'd been.

"I don't know how to explain how much worse this is, to not remember what happened to me," he moaned quietly. "To have been used, to have been unable to fight back, prevent what was happening. Those men died senseless deaths. I feel… violated... exploited..."

"I understand Luke, quite well," she whispered sadly. "More than you can imagine. Sarin did too, if anything we suspect about that station is true."

"You're overlooking a crucial fact," he warned.

"Which is what?"

"I have no way of knowing it's not still in me, part of me?"

Leia peered at him, plainly unperturbed. "Wouldn't you know?"

"I want to believe I would. I do."

"_I _trust you."

"Do you?" A breeze ruffled through the open doorway. In came the mellifluous laughter of ancient wind chimes made of sand-polished glasses and strung with curled titanium wires. They'd been there as long as he could remember, even when he was boy. He'd come here once with his uncle. "You remember the first exercise I ever taught you?"

She caught her hair and pushed it back over her shoulders. "To hear you?"

"Second lesson then." He stretched out his hand, took her own and lifted her palm to his temple. "See. Look. Tell me if I'm lying, to you or to myself."

For a few long moments it was quiet. He was conscious of the coolness of her palm against his skin, of her mind pressing against his, of the intrusion, but he removed himself from it and listened to the wind chimes, stared at the grooves cut into the tabletop. He was expecting her to find something, a cunning lie his mind had construed to shield him. His body could not have acted without him. For so long he'd been carrying memories he longed to forget; now he desperately needed to recall an equally terrible one.

It took her some time.

"It's you," she assured him. "I'm not skilled enough to force my way through your mind, but you're not being deceptive, even subconsciously. I _would _feel that." Her fingers skittered back across the tabletop, and then flattened out. She stared at her sleeves and began folding the cuffs.

Relieved beyond words, Luke stared at her sleeves too, or rather not at her sleeves but at her wrists. Then up over her wrist to the soft undersides of her forearm where her flesh was mottled, yellow and purplish with fading marks. Angling his chin toward them and hoping it wasn't SpecForce's handiwork, he asked, "What happened to you?"

"Oh these?" she queried lightly, flipping her bruised limbs over and appraising them as though they were adorned with the finest Krayt sandpearls Tatooine had to offer. "Elrood. I thought I could wrangle my way out of binders, but apparently I lack the muscle to do it." She flexed her arm and managed a wan smile. "Maybe that can be the next thing you ever teach me?"

"You two were picked up?"

"Yes," she admitted, face falling with an emotion that closely resembled embarrassment. "Only it wasn't us, it was me." Her shoulders slumped so low they practically sank beneath the table. "Oh, Luke, it was so unlike me. I'm never that careless. I wasn't paying attention. I let myself get distracted and the next thing I knew… If Han hadn't been able to stop them..."

They'd all had their close calls over the years, more often than not a moment's lull in caution was to blame. "Thank the Force you were both all right." He studied her features closely. "I mean you _were _all right?"

"Yes. Han was stupid and brave all at once – he scared me half to death and if…" Her voice caught, and then she blurted out so fast he barely understood her. "If you want to pick up where you left off with the compulsive hugging it's okay with me."

He did. Over her shoulder he took another long look around Ben's again. He eyed the rolled up sleeproll by the door again and recalled the way they'd been bantering outside. "Does Han know everything?" he asked, with a final squeeze. "I don't want to say something I shouldn't... "

"What do you mean?"

Even as he began to reply the approaching restlessness of a third person interrupted, before familiar footfalls burst through the doorway. Leia heard them too and extricated herself, watching the entrance. If Han found it odd or unsettling to walk in on a dead silence and find two people staring at him he didn't show it. Instead, he announced boisterously, commanding the silence, "Is anyone hungry? I'm starving."

Luke turned sideways and shrugged. "I'd eat a bantha right about now." That was not far from the truth either. "I'll order two of everything your making."

"_I'm _making? _I'm _making?" Han hopped up into the kitchen. "_I'm _making. Whatever gave you the idea I'm making anything?"

"Would you?" Leia asked, smiling. "I'm hungry too."

Han pretended to consider her request. "For you? Why, yes." Then, regarding them both intently and demonstrating how frighteningly perceptive he could be with only his natural abilities, he offered them a gracious exit. "That's quite a sunset you too are missing. You should go take a look."

Leia held out her arm. "We'll be back in a few minutes. Shall we?"

They walked maybe a hundred meters from Ben's, coming to a stop on the precipice that overlooked the Ebe Crater Valley. Farther south the valley joined up with Beggar's Canyon, evolving into the familiar dips and turns Luke had frequented growing up, where he and Biggs and Deak had goofed off endlessly, avoiding chores and their parents. Much farther across the valley, erupting like hiccups on the flat mesa, the Mospic High Range's rocky outcropping were silhouetted by the sunset, a geographical trick of the eye. Although they looked only a day or two away, and anyone familiar with Tatooine knew Mos Espa was only just beyond them, from where they stood they it was over a week by foot. Han was right about the sunset.

Leia toed the sand in small semi-circles, and then gazed toward the outcroppings. "To answer your question, yes, he knows everything."

Luke wondered how Han had reacted when he learned but thought better of asking. "Things are good between you two then? I mean... unless I'm misinterpreting things and you two aren't..."

She flushed beneath her tan. "We are. Though I'm not sure there's an easy status quo for everything we've been through. But I'm happy. And... I'm scared to death."

"Scared of Han?"

"Of trusting him. I've decided to trust him and that terrifies me, the power that trust engenders. I think right now we're _both _figuring out how to trust one another again, if that makes sense."

"It makes perfect sense."

"I know he feels he did the right thing by leaving, and I'm trying to respect that. If I don't it means all this time apart was meaningless. I also know it was difficult for him and in a very basic and selfish way that helps, knowing that I wasn't the only one hurting, especially because parts of me are still very angry at him. It just… now it comes in flashes and waves..." She turned so that the sunset illuminated half of her face, auric and shadowed, light and dark. "He was there when I started miscarrying. He was with me when they told me there was no heartbeat."

The ache in the back of his throat throbbed anew with sharp pricks and jabs. "Well I'm relieved that you weren't alone. I was worried that you were."

"No, I wasn't alone," she murmured. "Not that way."

_What way_, he wondered, but she was already going on.

"But it's good that you asked. We haven't talked about it very much. It's probably better for both of us if I don't dwell on it. It's probably better if you don't mention it, at least for now. In fact, I would appreciate it if you didn't."

Luke thought about that. "That doesn't sound fair. To you I mean…"

"Nothing's fair, Luke," she said, an all too familiar edge cutting her tone. "Besides, it's easier for me this way. My mind buzzes with platitudes and bromides, like, 'this was probably for the best,' and 'things are meant to happen for a reason.' And I want to believe them. I need to. It hurts too much for me think differently. Right now that's the fairest I can be to myself."

"Okay, then, that's probably natural." He guessed. He supposed. No matter how often he'd tried to insert himself into his sister's shoes, imagine what she'd been going through these past few weeks, he imagined he only grasped a shade of her pain and as usual she was quick to hide it from him.

The long thought stretched out enough for her to use it to her advantage, pressing their jaunt for an end. "I think that's it then. We came out here-"

"To talk about you," he finished.

"I came to see the sunset and discuss what you want to do next," she amended. "You'll have to read the datapads when you feel up to it and let me know what you think"

He _hmmphed_. "Either I take them at face-value or I regard them as rubbish. I don't know. I'm _supposed _to be Niras. I'm _supposed _to lead the New Order. I'm _supposed _to have crashed my ship in the middle of nowhere, _blacked out_, committed terrible crimes, awoken to discover I was someone else. How can a bunch of belletristic words scrawled on scattered datapads dictate my future?"

"They don't. They're not going to. We believe you. What matters now is clearing you."

Giving her a brief smile of gratitude, he said, "I just realized I haven't thanked you for everything you've done."

"You're welcome."

They turned and started for the dwelling. "I only have one idea and I don't know how well it's going to go over with Han."

Leia grinned. "Leave that to me."

Feeling more like his old self than in weeks, he put his hands up and surrendered when Leia ordered him back to the table and instructed him not to budge from his seat. Han had methodically arranged foodstuffs in neat piles on the counter; a pile of greens, a clump of white bulbous globes, a jar of milky sauce. Leia went to assist, pointing at him as she hopped up into the kitchen. "I almost forgot to ask. Do you want me to find Han's extra shaver for you?"

Luke stroked the coarse knuckle length growth, an uneven blend of brown sprinkled with reddish-gold. After a month he was almost used to the feel of it, though not the appearance. "I don't know. Is that an innocent offer or your opinion broad-siding me under the guise of an innocent offer?"

"Your brother's sense of humor seems unaffected," Han commented, in between cupboard doors slamming and pots clanging. "And it's both, kid. It's always both. Opinions are included free with everything."

She planted her hands on her hips, gazing back and forth between both men in wonder. "They are not!"

"Maybe later," he decided. He settled into watching them cooking together. It made the universe almost seem deceptively normal and at ease. It was some time later, when the smell of something delicious was wafting his way and two pots were bubbling noisily, that he wondered out loud, "Was that wall around the stove always like that?"

Both of them looked up sharply.

"Yes," Leia said, at the same time Han said, "No." Then Leia said, "Yes," again and gave him a lateral poke with her elbow. Han leaned over to kiss her forehead, after which they both replied in unison, "Yes."

All he could say was, "You two are stranger than ever."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

* * *

"You don't really mind, do you?" Leia was tailing Han from station to station on-board the _Falcon _while he preformed the pre-flight check.

"No," he guaranteed her, for what had to be the twentieth time that day. "I really don't mind."

"Because I do appreciate everything that you've done. I know this could cost you your commission. I really do and so does Luke. …"

"No _kidding_." Luke had already been overdoing it with his thanks, and quite frankly, the gratitude was beginning to irritate in addition to embarrass him. "Thanks duly noted, appreciated and accepted. But no one put a needlebeamer to my jugular or used any Jedi mind control. Although…" He considered his words. "Do you suppose that High Command might buy that during my debriefing?"

She waggled her head, swishing her trailing braid back and forth behind her like a swaying serpent. "But I could tell them jabbing Tryll with the hypodermic was my idea."

"Blowing up a prehistoric Imperial base was your idea."

"True," she assented, drifting back to her quiet observation.

Oddly enough, Han reflected, as the Fabritech ran a diagnostic examination of the ships systems (hyperdrive, shields, power and gravity generators, sensors), losing his commission didn't concern him that much. They way he viewed it, there wasn't a chance in hell any of the recriminations SpecForce had made against Leia were going to stick, and if they cleared her, they would be forced to clear _him_. It was a commonsensical chain reaction; they couldn't charge one and not the other, the left hand and not the right. Furthermore, he actually _had _orders from Intelligence's Supreme Commander to protect her and nobody was going to be able to disprove his claims that she had not been safe at Advanced Base Baskarn. Failing that, now that SpecForce knew the Jedi-hero of the Alliance was a close blood relative, he would tell them she made him do it all with a fancy mind trick and hope they had enough of a sense of humor to acquit him for originality's sake.

Luke was the bigger problem.

He was almost used to not blaming Luke for the murders, used to viewing him as a pawn in a senseless act of annihilation none of them understood.

_Almost_.

They hadn't gone without Leia's unacknowledged mediations for more than a moment here or there, not that her brother had been that communicative of late. For the past two days Luke had spent most of his waking moments sitting outside Ben's and 'meditating', although Han knew very well the difference between a grown man staring off into space and a Jedi in deep reflection. "What about your brother?" he asked.

"The team," she sighed.

The shipboard console bleeped and translated the Fabritech's analysis onscreen. As expected, all systems were satisfactory, although it printed ominously:

_Captain Chewbacca, your ship is 225 days overdue for its annual  
maintenance check_.

If they'd been discussing another topic, he would have chuckled at the Wookiee's equipment installation antics. "Yeah."

Leia was cogitating pensively and didn't notice, saying, in her politician's voice, "It's not unprecedented. There is pre-existing legislation. There are statutes dealing with crimes committed while an individual is under any sort of mind control or narcotic influence. It's happened before. Maybe not in the same fashion, but it did, to dozens of our servicemen during the worst of the war, sleepers."

"Not in the same fashion," he repeated dryly. "We're talkin' mind control by deceased Jedi. That description sounds a tad understated."

"I don't know what to say, what to call it," she avowed softly. "But I'm certain going to Yashuvhu to find answers is the right thing to do. We need answers Han."

Han grunted an affirmative reply, switched off the Fabritech and called up the Nav-computer.

The decision to go to Yashuvhu was logical for several reasons. Skywalker desperately wanted answers to what had happened to him on Baskarn, and was hoping someone on Yashuvhu would know enough to help him. Han agreed it was a wiser choice to return to Coruscant with as much information as possible. As well, they needed information on this _Niras _person. Within the datapads Kadann prophesized the native would return to his home, that his welcome mat would be spun of the finest web-silk and adorned with jewels.

Except...

There was no Niras.

There was only Luke.

Han couldn't figure how that was going to work out in their favor, but no matter what perspective they viewed it from, the distant planet was the only link they had to either Sarin or Niras. His suspicious nature was suffering for it. If the prophet Kadann believed his own writings, or if the Royal Imperial Guard believed Kadann's writings, there might be others awaiting them. They might be walking into a trap the size of the Dragonstar Nebula.

As Leia had put it, taking a wittily optimistic stance, at least then they might also find their link back to the sabotage at Home Fleet. Han had promptly expressed his belief that information was about as valuable to a dead man as it was to an ameba. Luke, the ever so helpful voice in the background, had pointed out that ameba were more intelligent than sentient beings gave them credit.

There was one sentimental reason too. It was altogether possible that Sarin had family surviving him, who had perhaps wondered about him for decades. Leia wanted to see them, to tell them he had saved her life. This, she had confided to him quietly yesterday. It was tough to argue with her on that.

A millisecond later they were staring at a medium-sized planet located splat in the middle of nowhere, so far along the Outer Rim it was perhaps going be a new distance record for galactic limits traveled in his lifetime. Just over two standard days from Tatooine, it didn't, as he'd been hoping, swing them back through the Sumitra Sector. There was no chance he could stop off at Kashyyyk to pick up his first mate.

Leia leaned against him while she peered at the screen. "A world without edges," she murmured.

"Without what?"

"That's what Luke said _Yashuvhu _means, in their language."

"Huh," he mumbled, wishing it meant '_without Imperials_'. That would have made him feel better about all this.

She pointed. "We can plot a straight course from here."

"Uh huh. When do you want to depart?"

"Tonight? If we can be ready."

"I can be ready."

"We really appreciate it," she started saying again.

"You guys can stop thanking me. That's what I would appreciate most," Han grumbled, switching off the computer and thinking, _Chewie is going to be one pissed off Wookiee, if I don't at least send him a message to let him know everything is okay_.

As if Leia had heard that, she said, "I hope Chewie and Mallobotuck are having a nice vacation together."

"I'm sure they are. They were when I left."

"And you should probably message him," she suggested. "He'll be worried about you."

"Funny," he replied, casting a dubious glare down at her. "Very funny and not so funny."

Her angelic face revealed nothing more than genuine bafflement. "What?"

There was a realistic chance he was a little paranoid, but with Luke dropping replies to her before she'd finished a sentence half the time, and vice-versa, he was feeling slightly chary of both of them. "I'll chalk it up to coincidence then."

"Chalk what up to coincidence?"

"Whatever it was I was thinking," he replied, artfully hitting the retraction controls for the ramp behind her. What he had been thinking was abruptly long forgotten and replaced by a better, more exciting prospect. They actually hadn't had more than five minutes alone in almost three days. He'd spent two very frustrating nights with her; one on a rock hard pallet on a genuinely rock hard floor, the second on the pile of inflatable cushions that her brother had misarranged so that they never seemed to be as comfortable as they'd been before he'd arrived. Each night they'd both been acutely and painfully aware that her brother was sleeping on the other side of the scrim.

"Well, what were you thinking?"

He grinned wolfishly. "Nothing important."

She rolled her eyes toward the heavens, at their blended fuzzy reflections in the overhead paneling, and muttered, "I'm confused. I'm confused and sooner or later when they lock me up I'm going to tell them it's your fault." The click of the ramp sealing sounded behind her. Leia smiled too. "I was wondering when you were going to get around to that."

It had wholly escaped his notice that throughout the flight check that she'd been following him around thanking him with a mischievous glint in her eyes. His grin expanded as he drew a forefinger along the weak-tea colored sleeve. "You were?"

"I thought I should let you do the check first," she explained, nodding sincerely. "I didn't want to distract you."

"Well that was very thoughtful of you," he commended, moving his forefinger to her cheek. A flush that had nothing to do with the stuffiness onboard his ship colored it. The pulse at the base of her throat was flickering rapidly. Han leaned down and kissed her hungrily.

It took them a long time to manage the ten or so steps to his cabin.

As soon as they crossed the hatchway, she broke apart, or rather _bounded _away from him. "You stay back," she whispered, as though someone else was on board to hear them. "I'm taking off my boots first."

"Sure," he chuckled. It had taken him forever to untangle them that time.

When the boots were off, her fatigues followed, and soon her bare thighs gleamed in the roseate glow of the passage lights. She moved to the bunk, tossing blankets and pillows alike onto the floor. Han reclined against the hatchway, watching, with about twenty graphic images of things he wanted to do to her – most that he had done to her at one time or another - flashing simultaneously through his mind. In between flashes he tried to figure out what he'd ever done in his life to deserve a half-dressed princess, a goddess-desideratum, gallivanting around his quarters, one who considered making a bed an obsolete and utterly impractical chore and blankets an impediment to other activities.

When he couldn't bear it any longer he strode over caught her around the waist from behind, just as she was finishing tearing off the blankets. He skimmed his palms along the outer muscles of legs, over her rear end, beneath her tunic, around over her stomach, over her breasts. Leia's skin was beautiful, warm, smooth, more tactilely pleasing than the finest Ramordian silk. Like so many qualities distinctly female, it was alien beneath his callused hands. Of their own accord his hands compulsively stroked and squeezed, fascinated by its softness, by its sleekness. He stroked the spot just inside of her pelvic bone, before the dark curls began. Leia squirmed and laughed, too ticklish there to endure being touched lightly.

Han spooned his palm lower, over her sex, probing with one finger, eliciting a response that was half an incomprehensible word, half a moan. Leia arched her body back against his, craned her neck upwards so that he could stoop down to kiss her. Then she slipped free, turned, and fell onto the bunk, panting and flushed. The transformation from a normally composed and serene former Princess of Alderaan to a bundle of eagerness and passion was magical. "Hurry up."

By then, Han was stripping off his own clothes shamelessly. There was barely a moment to taste her, press his tongue between her legs and suckle gently, before she was tugging at him to climb on top of her. Her mouth eagerly sought him out, while she guided him inside of her and shifted her legs around his hips. She was tight and warm, slick, causing him to gasp quietly under his breath. With a high pitched trill, Leia closed her eyes and relaxed, as though several days worth of tension had been driven from her in the solitary motion. Resting his weight on his elbows and studying her, he pushed until she could take him in no further, pressed up against her womb. He resisted the urge to stir at first, allowing her body a moment's reprieve to adjust. "Better?"

"Yes," she breathed heavily, upon finding him watching her. The frenetic sense of urgency had subsided, though she clutched at his forearms fiercely. "I'm sorry. I couldn't wait."

Han found the admission charming. "You couldn't wait," he repeated, smiling and splaying his fingers up beneath the fabric of her tunic. It annoyed them and he much preferred the feel of bare flesh against his own. He wanted to move against her, he wanted her wanton, wanted nothing in the way. "Why are you still wearing this?"

"You distracted me. Your fault."

"Take it off."

She laughed and pulled on his hips with her ankles, deeper, tighter. "No. Make me."

The refusal spawned a tussle that lasted until the offending garment was flung up and over a cubby unit. It was easy to encircle her wrists and pin them over her head, easy to sweep the item off. The feigned struggle, the game, ended as soon as they began making love in earnest.

They started off slowly. Gradually, the entire universe beyond him condensed to Leia and her sounds, and her scent and her mouth, to the tiny space of his bunk and to every inch of his body that was touching hers. They rolled in tandem across the mattress, jockeying for top position in a tangle of limbs and energy and passion. For a time he permitted her to win, until he couldn't stand to be so compliant, so at her mercy, and then he forced her beneath him again.

Leia gouged her nails along his side in protest initially. The evanescent fracture of pleasure was equally exhilarating and addictive, blinding. In response he caught himself digging his fingertips into her breasts and thighs, fucking her harder than he meant and not nearly as hard as his body was begging him to. It seemingly made no difference to her, malleable as a taris vine, bending this way and that. When he kissed his way down her throat and took her sensitive nipples between his teeth she stretched her arms out wide as though she were helpless to stop him, whimpering all the while.

Eventually they both surrendered to a rhythm. They made love until she was alternately trembling and tensing and keening under her breath. When Han knew she was near, he gave in to an overpowering need to watch her, drawing upward while pressing down on her knees. The pre-orgasmic flush ran vivid between her collarbones and across her cheeks, her dark lashes folded like wings. Briefly, he wondered what she was thinking, laying there like that, closed and separated from him, but then she cried his name once and drew him closer.

Han let her climax first, knowing she loved the feel of being driven into in those hypersensitive moments directly after orgasm. He loved it too, when she was swollen, moaning out of control, when their rutting was no longer a conscious activity but an act more primal. All rational thoughts temporarily deserted him, the thud-thud-thud of his heartbeat roaring in his mind, Leia's hands and mouth urging him on and pleading. The breaking pressure overcame him, lapping up the sides of his legs, through his gut, until with final bellowed groan he him let himself go into her.

Leia panted and squirmed under his weight, little aftershocks rippling inside her, little _hmm _sounds escaping as her breathing began resuming a normal ebb and wane. Han waited for the pulsing of his groin to cease before rolling partway onto his side.

Hugging him tightly, Leia whispered three times fast, "_I love you. I love you. I love you_."

"I love you too," he said, meaning it from the bottom of his heart, feeling an ache he couldn't quite admit to in response to the murmured devotions. It was overwhelming almost, to think someone could love him so intensely, that she did. Squeezing her pale thigh where it lay draped over his own, he added, "You didn't imagine it."

"I know. I wanted to tell you when I hadn't had too much wine but we haven't been alone at all. I've been storing them up." She ran the tip of her tongue over the scar on his chin. She loved to do that.

(In Han's experience, _all _women loved to do that. He really didn't get what was so fascinating about it.)

Then she murmured. "I felt like we didn't get to finish."

It took him a second to catch on. They weren't exchanging endearments so much as they were continuing where they left off the other night, though Han wasn't certain he wanted to delve into a discussion about the other night. The awful parts swung with countervailing force against the parts that hadn't been so awful. He remembered terrible things had being said, the glass shattering to smithereens, Leia cowering to avoid being cut by the splaying fragments. He would never forget that sight.

_She didn't mean what she said…_

Then who was he

?

The thought was ineluctable. He should ask, force her to tell him the truth, but hadn't been able to bring himself to do it. It would undoubtedly do more damage than good, but still it hung between them on his side, invisible to her as would be a figment of his imagination, but excruciatingly real to him just the same, the _who's _and the _why's_. She was _his _Leia, not someone else's.

_You're being stupid and paranoid and possessive…_

Let it go

…

All this he thought while she tousled the sticky hair along the nape of his neck and trailed kisses along his shoulder. The thoughts were completely disrupted when she pressed her lips against his and swept her tongue slowly inside his mouth, a sticky exchange of saliva in a gesture that was both carnally initiatory and carnally post-coital. Han kissed her back the same, then nibbled her lower lip and drew back. How it would appear to Luke if they holed up on his ship for an hour or two didn't bother him but Leia might not view it so casually. "Your brother isn't going to come storming on board to defend your honor or anything malapropos."

"Silly," she replied, brushing a few long strands of loosened hair from her eyes and shaking her head. "He'll probably appreciate it. I get the feeling it's a little mentally claustrophobic for him to be cooped up with us like this."

"Then I'm in favor of giving him lots and lots of free brain time." His grin was wicked as he shifted out of her. "Let me relax for a few and then I'm gonna-"

She clamped her hand over his mouth. "Gonna what? There is a difference between being subtle and being obvious. I know they don't teach you that where you grew up." Rolling out of his arms and heading for the fresher, she warned him. "Let's not be too obvious. He might wonder if we spend the whole day here."

"I don't think he'll wonder." He turned onto his back with his arms folded beneath his head, listening to the sound of water running. As naïve as Luke could be, he doubted he would wonder a bit about what they did when they were alone. At least, he sincerely hoped he didn't. Swinging his legs over the side, he went in after her.

Leia was just finishing washing between her legs. As he entered she set down her cloth and began unbraiding her hair. Han stole the cloth and used it to wash himself up. Then he stepped into the warmth of her body, reached around and cupped her breasts, smiling at her in the mirror, watching her undo her hair. There were patches of red mottling her chest unevenly, lower on her left side than right. To the best of his memory, they always happened that way. Whenever she blushed, he thought of the creeping flush across her breasts. It aroused him, turned him on. He liked that it took a good fifteen minutes for it to fade too. Keeping her breasts covered with his hands, Han rested his chin on her crown and studied their appearance in the mirror. He thought, "_Who are we exactly_?" but he was smooth, so he said, "You look beautiful."

"Naked?"

"Even better. And I love your hair down."

"It's a mess. I have to redo it before we go back."

A vague memory tickled his inner funny bone. "Hey, what was it you used to say when we first started sleeping together?"

Leia finished unbraiding and hugged his arms against her chest. Then she tilted her head back up at him, making her, 'I have no idea what you're talking about' face.

"About your hair," he prompted. "It went something along the lines of… '_If my hair is a mess_'…" When nothing came he went on, "And then… and then…"

"Could you possibly be referring to, it's not a quickie if I have to spend ten minutes redoing my hair?"

That was it. "Yeah, right," Han nodded, devilishly. "That was my favorite Leia-saying ever, ever."

"If I recall correctly it wasn't a 'saying.' You never paid any attention. I gave up."

"They didn't teach us to listen either where I grew up," he commented, freshly distracted. On the far corner of the fresher counter was a tiny disk. "Aw, Sithspit," he muttered, reaching over her shoulder. "I completely forgot about this."

"What is it?"

"It's from Harkness. You know how he and Jai were going on about that recording the Guard got their hands on. About what happened in the throne room that night?"

"It's _that_? It's on there?"

He leaned lower, regarding her expression carefully in the mirror. He and Dirk had struck a deal early the next morning, on Luke and Leia's behalf. "Even better, Sweetheart. It's the original and there are no other copies in the whole big bad universe."

Leia eyed him warily. "You've had it since Elrood? Why didn't you tell me?"

"That next day I wasn't exactly thinking about it and then we were... a little crazy until he got here. It's been the farthest thing from my mind. I didn't listen to it though," he added, because he felt that not listening to it would be something she respected. Though he'd considered it. He started it once even that morning on Elrood, but after five minutes of dead air he'd changed his mind.

She drew apart from him, crouched and opened a cabinet, searching until she located a hairbrush. Then she stood and said, "I don't want to either. I think my brother dying is something is something I don't want to hear. I know _they _hurt him. I know they tried to use me to turn him. I don't want to listen to it."

"Sure. It's understandable," he agreed, watching the bristled side of her brush excoriate the flesh of her hip. He reached over and took it away from her, not sure she even realized what she was doing. "I'm gonna give it to Luke. It belongs to him."

"Okay. That's the best thing to do." Leia slipped out, picked up a blanket from the floor and wrapped it around her shoulders like a shawl.

Han followed her back on the bunk. Personally, the whole ship was feeling stuffy to him, stagnant after several days with the systems switched off. "Are you cold?"

She said no and lay down with the blanket drawn up to her neck. Han stretched out next to her, determined to put the disk, the recording, out of his mind and enjoy the downtime. They used to hide in his cabin from Chewie for hours, way back when. He used to do a mean imitation of a growling Wookiee that usually sent her shrieking.

Leia rested her cheek on his shoulder stroked the russet curls on his chest. "You know what?"

"What's that?"

"I missed going to bed with you when you were gone." The admission was candid, without the slightest degree of guile. "I missed waking up with you there. I missed knowing you were there. All of it."

His insides flinched. His heart was not as intransigent as his intellectual resolve to stand by and support his decision to leave. While she was talking he swept her hair aside and began caressing her back, down over the curve of her bottom. "I did too."

"And I do appreciate your attempt to open up the other night. I know how hard it is for you."

"Huh." Han regarded her expression, which was expectant and curious. Sometimes it was better not to overanalyze these things, and he certainly had no intention of analyzing what had prompted his spiel. To her credit, she hadn't made a big deal about it yet, which suited him, and he really didn't want her to. He realized he was still holding the brush, and moved to rise. "Sit up. I'll do this."

"Do you remember how?"

"Of course I do," he said, caging her between his legs and turning her so that her back was to him. "This is not hyperdrive mechanics."

For five minutes she was quiet while Han concentrated on coaxing her hair into a gleaming and tangle free mass, remembering to coordinate the dragging and the holding, so he wasn't accused of trying to rip the individual strands from her scalp. He did a commendable job of bringing the tresses under control, if he was to say so himself, though they tickled his knees terribly as they lifted and fell. Then he tossed the brush on the floor and gathered her tightly against him, nuzzling her collarbone and luxuriating in the feel of her against him, stroking the outside of her thighs.

"If there _was _problem with the pre-flight check how much longer should it take you?" she murmured.

"_Ach_," he groaned in frustration. It was bothering her, after all, this whole business of outward appearances. "No rush, remember. You said that."

"No rush," she repeated, snuggling deeper. In a more subdued tone, she said, "There is one thing I need to discuss with you. Sort of a favor."

"Another one?" he teased, sliding his hands over her knees and beginning to travel back. "Hauling you and your brother across the galaxy isn't enough? You want more?"

Leia stilled his hands before they arrived at their intended destination. "_Han_," she sighed. "It's important. I need to talk to you. I need you to listen to me."

"What is it?"

"You know I had to tell Luke that there was something wrong, with me, that the miscarriage wasn't his fault. And, naturally, he's very worried."

Han took a guess. Leia sounded nervous along with serious now. "You haven't told him about the test results?"

"I told him there was a problem with my auto-immune system. I left it at that."

"Well…" Han paused uncomfortably. _Shades of five months ago all over again_, he thought. There was only one direction this favor could possibly be headed and wasn't sure he liked it. "What am I supposed to do here?"

"Simply, if he asks, don't tell him any more than I have." She slouched over her knees. "He may or may not ask you."

"You want me to lie to him if he does?"

"No. I'm asking you not to volunteer new information; there's a difference. Han, this is very personal and private. _You _shouldn't even know. I certainly shouldn't have to ask for permission to maintain my privacy?"

"No you don't," he agreed, albeit reluctantly. "But why is it such a big deal? Why wouldn't you just tell him the truth."

"He's been through a lot."

"So have you." Crouched forward the way she was, the little entry points along her spine, white stars where the narco-drugs had been injected on the _Death Star_, were plainly visible. The sight very nearly obliterated his basis for contention. He said it again. "So have you."

"Then you understand?"

Knowing full well that he was going to regret this, he said, "No."

"What do you mean 'no?'"

"I know what you _want _me to understand," he clarified. "I disagree. I think you should tell him the truth. I think he should know."

Leia was mad, spinning away from him and around so that she sat at the foot of the bunk, dark eyes flashing in an instant. "Han, this isn't about you. It isn't about Luke. It's about me and only me. It's not for you to decide to share."

"No, of course it isn't. I'm not saying that."

"Oh." Leia's ire subsided slightly. "Well then what? Are you going to say anything to him or not?"

Han hadn't even thought about any of this. He hadn't even expected her to feel this way or sound so panicked. He'd assumed, naturally, that she would want to tell Luke, that it was something her brother should know, especially considering the turning points in their relationship on Baskarn. Granted, he couldn't force her to be forthright with her brother, nor could he disagree that the matter was extremely personal and private. But he could have his opinion. "I want you to be okay. I don't want to get between you and your brother, with you keeping secrets from him. I _hate _that. I _hated _it before."

"I _am _okay," she muttered, sliding over the edge of his bunk and beginning to gather her clothing. "And I'm not going to wound him after everything he's gone through without good cause to do it. Look at how he is! You can't give me a single, solitary reason to make telling him worth it. It won't happen again; Tryll was certain. It will never matter in the future. It will only hurt him to know." She looked around for her tunic, glanced up at the shelving unit where he'd thrown it and gave a long, exasperated sigh before taking another from his wardrobe.

Han's temper stirred watching her dress. Her timing really couldn't have been any worse. Why did she have to pull this now when they'd finally found time alone? Why did she always have to go and make everything so... _fucking_conditional?

Leia hastily knotted her hair back and blurted out, "Well?"

Pretending he didn't give a damn as to whether she stormed off or not, he grabbed a pillow off the floor, punched it soundly, and lay back on his bunk, kicking one leg up over his knee. With a well-practiced air of disregard, he said, "If he asks me I'll tell him he has to talk to you, that I'm not allowed to say anything. Just like god damned SpecForce and their gag order."

"That's as good as telling him," she accused bitterly. "It's as good as going behind my back."

"Depends on your perspective, Princess."

"Oooh." She kicked at his clothing. "Fine! You want to make some big principled stand over this, don't you? Well go ahead! I won't forgive you!"

Irritated beyond all reason now, he gestured to the bed. "We're done here, I take it?"

"What do you think?"

* * *

Luke was running through a few exercises outside Ben's, trying to clear his mind and prepare for the trip to Yashuvhu. He was having trouble concentrating, again.

Leia exited the _Falcon _first, tramping across the desert in that uniquely tensed up fashion of hers that was indicative of her temper at its boiling point. Although Luke was viewing her from an inverted position, the barraging hustle was unmistakable. After so many years, he knew it just by hearing her footsteps. She stomped directly past him and through the open doorway, saying, "We're leaving as soon as we're packed up."

Sagely, he didn't bother to answer.

He spied Solo exiting his ship a few moments later. He made no move to approach the abode. Instead, he tossed his jacket on the ground next to the ramp and set about dragging out a section of ancient scaffolding. Then he raised the scaffolding beneath his left alluvial damper, tested its steadiness, and headed back up the ramp. A moment later he appeared with a long nozzle, which was apparently connected to something on board the _Falcon_. Next he hopped atop the scaffolding and stretched his arms inside the damper. The nozzle whirred noisily, even from a distance, sucking out sand and debris.

Luke dropped his legs and fell back on his seat, wondering if he should go offer to help, but no sooner had he thought that than Han skidded off the scaffolding and began dragging the rickety apparatus around to the other side of his ship. A moment later he decided if Leia's stomp-by was any indication, he doubted Han was going to be in a much better mood.

A pity, since Luke had thought the time alone might do them good.

His heightened senses told him there was vulnerability about both of them he'd never seen or felt. Like a bone cleanly broken, then reset, on its way to becoming stronger, only the knitting had just begun. Over the past two days, he'd clearly intuited that his presence was inhibitory to whatever they were going through. They were affectionate when they thought he couldn't see and spoke in whispers when they thought he couldn't hear. He sensed it, felt uncomfortable being aware of it, and even felt the slightest whisper of resentment. No one ever really cared to be the disturber, the outsider, the one who had the 'altering' effect on others, of making them self-conscious. However, there was little to be done about it than to step back and call as little attention to it as possible.

It was also altogether possible the only reason they'd been getting along so well was because they had company - that not only was he hampering the healing process, but the entire process in general, such as trivial bickering over who drank all the blue milk and left none for caf. He couldn't tell and he hadn't wanted to pry further.

Still, he warned Han, when he approached as short time later. "She's steaming mad about something."

The former smuggler apparently thought twice about heading through the open doorway, flopping down in the sand with the grace of a one-winged mynock. "Believe me, I know." He dug his hands in, letting the grains pour between the interstices of his fingers. "And I've gotta go in there in pack. I don't want to go in there now."

Luke reflected for a moment, thinking. All of this was stranger still, because the last time he'd seen them together had been five months ago, and all of their time apart had passed without touching him. If it weren't for those long weeks on Baskarn with Leia, seeing how much pain she'd been in, their reunion would have passed without touching him, entirely inconsequential. But it certainly wasn't his place to bring it up, nor did he know how to go about it. So he said, because it was a common ground, "Neither do I."

This prompted Solo to burst out laughing.

The laughter was contagious. Here they were, two grown men, a Jedi and a smuggler, preferring to hide outside rather than face a woman half their size. The two sat in a conspiratorial silence, warily peering inside and chuckling. As far as Luke could see, there was no sign of movement.

"Maybe if we sit here long enough she'll do it for us?" Han ventured. "Cause I really hate packing."

"Or she'll be even madder because we're not helping."

The pilot whistled to himself. "Now, that could be bad. I've got a running theory about which one of your parents she got her temper from. It could be really bad."

(The comment didn't even jar him, though Luke never could have said that with the same casualness. Coming from Han, who treated most everything with a matter of sublime indifference, it sounded innocuous and inoffensive.)

Han continued. "So are you looking forward to leaving again?"

Luke nodded. "Every time I leave here I'm positive it'll be the last time I ever see it. And sooner or later, I end up here again. The, 'giant dustball', right?"

Han squirmed tensely, "Ahh... About that-"

"The permanent residents and settlers would be mortally insulted," the younger man added. "You're lucky I'm not one of them." He touched his cheekbone. "That was a good shot though, I'll give you that."

"My right surprise jab? I've been told it's a good one." The Corellian shaded his eyes and stared straight ahead. "Look, you've got to know, I didn't mean it. I mean, I did _then _but-"

"You didn't take out any teeth," Luke interjected, clicking his molars loudly. "You're safe. If you'd taken out teeth I'd be seeking retribution."

Han did a quick double take, as if to make sure they were on the same wavelength, and then realized it was a joke. "Don't mess with my head too much. I'll start sleeping with a face plate on." He rustled around in his pocket, withdrawing a small object. "I've got something for you, actually." He pressed a square recording disk the size of a ten-credit chip into his palm. It was as thin as laminated flimsiplast, made of a metallic material he couldn't identify. "It's a recording."

Luke almost activated it, wondering what it was, when Han said. "_Don't _play it now. It's of you -over Endor. Leia updated you on all that, didn't she? It's the original. It's indestructible. It can't be copied. Whatever you want to do with it is up to you. It's yours."

"You... How did you get this?"

"I'm in tight with Imperial Intelligence," Han deadpanned.

For a moment, the fair-haired Tatooine native stared at the other man with his mouth wide open, wondering if it was in any way possible. "Where did you get it really?"

"Harkness."

Luke struggled to put a value on the disk. The information on it alone was worth thousands of credits. That Han could afford this was about as plausible as his having connections to Imperial Intelligence. "How much did this cost you?"

He flinched. "I'd rather not say. A _lot_."

"I don't know how to thank you. I don't even know what to say, but I know thanking you is part of it."

Han winked and struggled to his feet, shaking his pantlegs free of sand. "I thought, maybe this might even us out again. Now, I should really go in and straighten this out."

Luke tightened his fingers until the edges of the disk began to cut into his flesh. He opened his fist and stared at it. He wasn't sure he wanted to listen to it. He wasn't sure he wanted to remember that night. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with it. Carry it with him until the day he felt like could face what was on there. Bury it in Ben's basement? Lock it in a high security safe on Coruscant.

It proved he didn't kill the Emperor. To this day, most of Command, most of the galaxy, was convinced he'd killed both Darth Vader and the Emperor. He couldn't convince them it wasn't true.

He'd never bothered trying to convince anyone it had been Vader after all, who saved him. But he had proof now.

The voices inside were mere whispers, and though he wasn't trying to eavesdrop, his hearing enhanced of its own volition, the way his eyes would adjust to darkness.

"I don't want to spend the entire trip to Yashuvhu fighting, do you?" Han was saying.

"_No_."

Silence. Stalemate.

Leia. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left like that on you."

"I know, Sweetheart. And I do get it."

"Do you?"

"I get a lot more than you give me credit for. Why don't you start giving me a little credit?"

Rustling followed and another silence. It was beautiful this time.

The Jedi opted to wait outside a little longer before going in to help pack up.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

* * *

The _Falcon _made its approach to Yashuvhu during what would have been Tatooine's evening the following day.

Luke sat in Han's chair resting his chin between his thumb and forefinger and propping up his elbow. Beside him in the co-pilot seat was Leia, balancing a bowl of balka noodles on her knees. Again, she wound a pasty noodle around her utensil and failed to prevent it from slithering like a greased worm off the utensil onto the floor. With an 'I told you so,' smirk, Luke slithered it all the way to the garbage receptacle. He said, "Why don't you just give up and eat them with your fingers. This isn't exactly an upscale Coruscanti restaurant."

She shrugged. "Truly, it's one of the tragic after-affects of my upbringing. I see cutlery, I think, '_you must use it_.' You never met my-"

"Hey! Hey!" Han's bellowing erupted from somewhere on the _Falcon_.

The siblings exchanged glances. A moment later, the lanky Corellian made his way aft, brows raised, eyes rebellious and unimpressed, crossing his arms defiantly as a lagging boot caught up with its mate. "I've been thinking," he began.

"_That's _scary," Leia replied without missing a beat.

Han scowled. "It occurred to me we haven't discussed how we're going to play this when we get there. You ran a hundred plus searches out of our quarters on Baskarn for Yashuvhu. There are logs of anything you downloaded from the mainframe system. If the New Republic is looking for us-"

"We're not going to be high on their list of priorities," Leia soothed. "Not to come this far out."

"But you don't know that for sure. There's no way you can know that for sure."

Luke exchanged another fleeting look with his sister. They had discussed this earlier in depth, without Han present. Leia had a long list of reasons as to why she _almost _knew for sure that the New Republic wasn't going to be waiting for them. For one, they didn't have the credits to spare for a search and recover mission. Nor did they have enough vessels to arbitrarily command the ones they possessed on a wild goose chase across the galaxy. Madine and Cracken were highly unlikely to authorize a search, even if external pressure pushed for it. High Command was probably fighting to contain the recent events, lest they draw unwanted attention to an already unpleasant situation. It reflected as badly on them as it did Luke and her. Nevertheless, Han was right. None of these reasons guaranteed them any sort of nondescript anonymity once they landed and Han's least favorite words of late were _probably, maybe _and _I hope_.

"No," she admitted, straightening her spine. "It's not possible for me to be one hundred percent certain of anything."

"I thought so," Han sighed, swinging one arm dramatically, tapping his temple with a rigid finger. "Can you hear that? That's my brainwaves shouting over and over that they think this is a bad idea."

Luke tried to reassure him. "Yashuvhu doesn't belong to the New Republic, the same as it didn't belong to the Empire. We… we..." He half caught himself and stammered – he was saying _we _when _we _was the same group he'd escaped from on Baskarn. "We don't have any jurisdiction out here."

"That's exactly it. We don't have any jurisdiction. For the record, I'll state that I'm equally confident that Imperial Intelligence doesn't have any jurisdiction out here either. Or his Royalness' Death Guards or Kadann's private assassins. Nor do we know if Intelligence has clamped down on the little-" Han pinched his thumb and forefinger together as though he were crushing an insect. "-_Problem _that rigged your shuttle last month."

Leia waved a hand and cut him off. "Yes, I'm fully aware that if Intelligence has records of my console downloads whoever it was might have leaked the information to the Imperials. However, it's irrelevant. Our only hope is that someone on Yashuvhu will help us and in order for that to happen, we need be as forthright as possible. First rule of diplomacy – or a matter of general politeness - lying about your identity makes for a terrible first impression."

"It's worked for me in the past," Han countered. "All we need are a few disguises. I have dye capsules down below. I've always wanted to be a Chiss or Etti."

"It won't work. If anyone's looking for your ship, Yashuvhu gets so few visitors and has so little traffic we're going to stick out like a sore thumb regardless." Appraising him quietly and carefully keeping her tone neutral, she said, "You don't really think an old Corellian YT-1300, if they've been notified about it, will be something they'd overlook?"

"I figured we'd land at least using a few smokescreens, aliases. They'll have to work at figuring out who we are." Han bowed low and dropped his voice. "It wouldn't be sitting on the end of their noses on a piece of flimsy. I don't play sitting duck."

"Luke needs to be who he is, Luke Skywalker, _Jedi_, asking for their assistance."

The Corellian rolled his eyes toward the dilated hyperspace view. "Why doesn't he say he's some other Jedi?"

"I would if I could," Luke interjected, knowing that no matter how much Han grumbled he wouldn't change his mind this far in the game. The round was going to Leia, but he nodded sympathetically anyway for his benefit. "I'm sorry Han. I know it's a big risk we're asking you to take."

"Yeah. It is." Gesturing to Leia's flowing senatorial robes and looking none too pleased with their plan, Han asked, "Are you going to turn our jaunt into a politically tinged event in the name of diplomacy too?"

She shook her head. "This would be called the extent of my formal wear since the rest was blasted into confetti on Elrood. Luke will do all the talking for us." Her smile became beguiling. "Unless of course, you want to get dressed up and play the diplomat, here on unofficial business for the New Republic?"

"A thousand no's."

"If I paid you more than you could imagine?"

"A trillion no's," he amended, "since I know you don't have that much. If you did it might be another story."

"Since when am I doing all the talking?" Luke wondered urgently. He'd been counting on his sister's diplomatic skills when they arrived. And like Han, he'd noted Leia's traditional style of dress hours ago and assumed the same.

Feigning innocence, though not convincingly, Leia turned and widened her eyes. "Did I forget to mention that?"

"Yes you did."

"I'm sorry. It must have slipped my mind. Here's your heads up. You'll be doing all the talking when we get there."

"But this isn't my area of expertise?"

Without blinking, Leia answered. "I'm not allowed to speak in public or to any male without permission. I'm not sure I'll be permitted to speak to the Tas."

"Are you serious?"

Leia gulped another noodle and blotted the corner of her mouth. "Without prior clearance from their embassy on Coruscant I'm forbidden from serving in any official capacity. So unless you want to make a run to the Core, it's up to you."

"Ohhhh," Han chirruped with immediate understanding, advancing toward her with one greedy eye on her dinner. "This is one of those worlds. What's that?"

"Yes, _those _worl- Hey! Hey! Hey! Get your grubby, grease-stained fingers out of my dinner."

"You can't possibly eat all that by yourself," he protested with a full mouth. "And I thought you'd gotten over your dirty hand issues. Huh. Huh. This should certainly be very interesting."

"I thought you'd think so and get a utensil! It's FOOD."

"Are you gonna launch a feminist political platform the minute we land. This should be very enlightening. Leia on her best behavior and quiet. I don't think I've _ever _seen that. Luke have you ever seen that?"

Leia puffed up her cheeks and exhaled with exasperation. "I can't imagine why I didn't want to mention this until the very last second. I can't, for the life of me... And come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen _you _on your best behavior."

Han gestured to himself, gasping as though mortally insulted. "What do you think this is?"

"Sometimes I'm not sure. Sometimes I'm afraid to overanalyze anything you do."

Luke coughed loudly. "Could get back to my being the group orator. Whatever pertinent information you have that I should know beforehand?"

His sister finally gave him her full attention, regarding him warmly and passing the bowl of noodles to Han's outstretched hand. "Luke, you'll do beautifully. I'm going to be with you for the duration and you'll have my counsel available to you whenever you need it. It will simply be in a diminished capacity when we're not alone."

"How strict will it be?"

Leia's expression grew contrite. "I'm not clear on the specifics. Sarin mentioned a few issues to me the morning we left, though I don't think they're relevant. I read up on what I could when I ran my searches. Their current form of government is an offshoot of a traditional monarchy, and what I politely refer to as a rural paradox: A civilized, self-sufficient society, modernized as much as it can be out here, but completely backwards when it comes to gender equality." Narrowing her eyes and frowning, she continued. "To be honest, I'd love to barge off this ship and give them a lesson on how archaic their division of the sexes is, but I know better. They never played by Coruscant rules; they weren't involved in the politics there even when the Old Republic stood. They're isolationists and this will be tricky. It'll be easy to step on their toes without intending to and we need to demonstrate our respect for them. Anyway, you'll able to feel your way as you go. I'm the one who gets to endure the wide range of annoying banalities and quaint traditions."

Suddenly, she looked as though she wanted to throw herself in an escape pod and eject. Luke tried to reassure her. "I'm sure it won't be that bad."

"We'll find out in about half an hour," Han said, tipping his chin toward his chair and offering the secondhand meal. "You hungry? I'll trade you seats."

* * *

No blockade-runners were dawdling when they dropped out of hyperspace. No local ships picketed the troposphere. The voice over the Yashuvhu Portmaster's Authority channel was friendly and polite. The view as they approached the capital, Eligel Proper, revealed a medium sized city by outer world standards, mapped in concentric grids, circle upon circle, broken by high towers and warrens of kaleidoscopic gardens. Yashuvhu's capital had only one dry dock, which was essentially a fenced in meadow and was large enough to fit maybe a dozen ships. Only one other ship besides the _Falcon _was making use of it.

Han, as the ship's captain and owner, was checked through customs first, expediently. They placed Leia in the holding area adjacent to the main office. Luke was processed next, identifying himself by name, adding the title 'Jedi Knight', and explaining that he was here to do 'unofficial' research for the New Republic (Leia had suggested he refer to all his upcoming duties as unofficial, since the planet's records on foreign diplomacy were virtually nonexistent). In accordance with the local laws, he also declared that Leia was his sister, and that she was traveling with him.

For ten minutes the portmaster searched through his vid-console, and when he finally looked up at him, all he said was, "I'm sorry. The planet _Jedi Knight _is not listed nor one I've ever heard of."

The situation disintegrated from there.

Leia had explained to Luke that he might have to go along with a few cultural traditions he wasn't necessarily in favor of, but not to worry, to relax, and do whatever he thought was necessary. He knew that. He knew their entire excursion to Yashuvhu might depend on it. It was simply difficult to accept.

"No, she's not _mine_. I don't own her."

The sallow faced young man in the somber uniform continued giving him the same vapid stare he'd been giving him since they'd entered the customs office. "But she's your kin."

"Yes, she's my sister."

"Then she has to be registered as your property or that other man's property and you said he's not her legal mate."

He had thought, erroneously, that merely declaring her would be enough. Luke had never stomached the concept of a sentient being _owned_, for both moral reasons and due to his upbringing. Slavery had been legal on Tatooine before he was born. His Aunt and Uncle had staunchly been opposed to it; they'd railed against it when he was growing up. Though he knew it wasn't the same here, the whole business of 'registering a person as property' was unsavory, repulsive even. Worse was the tiny sign beside the console: _Does your female have an updated microchip. 15% off if a first time visitor_. Luke, panicked, moved his body in front of the sign and glanced toward the holding area, fearing that if Leia saw it the clerk might wind up on the floor in an Echani-style chokehold. "Why can't you register her all by herself?"

"I just explained it to you."

Luke tried the implacably obstinate approach. "No, you didn't."

"Yes, I most expressly did."

"No, you didn't."

"Sir. As I've explained, she must be registered under her mate or closest male family member. Unless, unless..." The clerk struck the side of his head as if in sudden understanding. "Oh, oh, oh? Unless she's one of those scientists we get from time to time? Is that what you're trying to say? Is she a scientist? Or a teacher? If she has a permissive visa from Coruscant…"

Luke ground his teeth together. "No, she doesn't have a visa from Coruscant."

"Well, then, we seem to have a problem here."

"Just register her by herself."

Once again, the mental nudge prompted the man to turn to his console screen. Once again, the clerk stared blankly at the screen for ten seconds. The nudges simply didn't work if there was no viable option onscreen for the addle-brained clerk. He said, plaintively now, under duress, for indeed Luke's mental persuasiveness left him _wanting _to please, "She can't be registered by herself without the proper visas. I can't do it. We'll register her as your female. Prince Luke Skywalker-"

_What in the world_… "Not _Prince_. I'm not a prince."

"But you gave her name as _Princess _Leia Organa?"

"That is her name."

"I don't follow? If she is your sister how are you not a prince? Oh…" The clerk flushed and gave him a quick nod. "Oh Sir, if you are a king, please forgive me for presuming…"

"No! No, I'm- oh! Wait!" Hadn't a similar ploy had worked for Threepio on Endor? There was no reason it might not work again, no matter how ridiculous it was. Luke leaned over and lowered his voice. "I _am _a king. A very important king. Where I come from, we do not register females as property. I do not want her registered as my property. Understood?"

The man became even more distraught. "Your Majesty? Oh, oh… Wait here for one moment. If the Tas was expecting you and no one told me..." The fit of babbling echoed down the passageway.

Suddenly uncertain about what his spur-of-the-moment fib was going to accomplish, Luke tore the _15% off _sign from the console and dropped it into the nearest receptacle. Then he glanced outside at his Han and threw his hands in the air uselessly. Han mimicked him, mouthed, 'better you than me,' patted his sidearm, and pointed in the direction the clerk had vanished. He had to pinch himself. Leia probably would have had no qualms about registering him as her property. He endured a trickle of distress at his own apparent ineptness. If he was so sure she would, why was he trying so hard _not _to.

Leia always told him his equitable senses of compassion and justice were wonderful traits when they didn't land him in a heap of trouble.

The clerk returned before Luke had time to worry further, bustling and simpering under his breath. "Oh no! I'm so sorry, Your Majesty. I still cannot permit her to enter the city until she's registered. It is unacceptable. We have strict regulations about this, you see, and there are no exceptions save the proper visas and documentation from our embassy on Coruscant."

_I give up_. Standing in the customs office all day long was losing its appeal. "Okay, look then," he groaned. "Put her under my name. But it's just _Luke Skywalker_. I'm not a king."

"The information you provided is incorrect?"

"It's not incorrect. It's… it's…" Luke gave him a very firm mental nudge. "It's a very long story and you don't have time for it, trust me."

Finally, there was a prod his meager brain could interpret. "Okay. Luke Skywalker, persons listed as property, one female, Princess Leia Organa."

_Property_? Luke winced inside, hoping this was merely a draconian formality that would mean nothing once they entered the city. "Fine."

"And you hereby swear to uphold Yashuvhi law, and assume responsibility for the wrongdoings any persons listed as your property might perpetrate while in the city."

_Because she'll run amok and start looting the minute we're downtown_. "Do you follow the Universal Charter of Code and Conduct?"

"The UCCC? Oh, yes let me check." He was off and flipping through a binder loaded with flimsiplast on the desk behind him.

The Universal Charter of Code and Conduct, or UCCC as it was widely known, was a blanket term for the general laws most worlds had in common. It was a traveler's safety net. Nearly every human world followed it to varying degrees, and for the most part it meant that crimes such as murder or theft _were _crimes, that any individual who perpetrated such acts would be charged accordingly. Still, on different worlds there were different grey areas, and penal systems didn't tend to mirror each other. According to the UCCC, one could be safely assured that 'jaywalking' for instance, wouldn't net them a year's imprisonment, or that public drunkenness didn't entail a mandatory death sentence. There were places like that, depending on the culture. One could never be too careful.

"Oh, of course. It says here that we are under the scope of its requirements. I should know that straightaway," he mumbled, apologetically now. "We don't get many visitors."

It was a strain to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "_Really_?"

"No, no we don't. Now. Is she already tagged with an ownership microchip?"

* * *

Shortly after the ordeal in the portmaster's office, a mid-size transport arrived and settled beyond the gates at the end of the dock. A parade of natives began disembarking.

"That looks like a receiving party?" Leia judged, rubbing at her smarting cheek. A very formal one, too. If she didn't know better, she might have said the Alderaanian Council of Elders was marching toward them in full regalia. She drew Han's bulky padded coat tighter against the gelid air, wishing she hadn't pinned her hair up. The tips of her exposed ears were freezing. Furthermore, an ominous vermilion cloud was rapidly approaching from the south, and as it neared, she was beginning to see that the cloud was crawling, made up tiny things - tiny _fluttering _winged things. For now there was plenty of time to rush back inside and escape, but she was keeping a wary watch.

"Yes, it does," Han agreed, sneezing for what had to be the tenth time since they'd disembarked. "They don't look like they start chanting at sunrise or something? Hey... you're gonna rub that off if you keep touching it."

The indignity of being female on Yashuvhu was beginning to settle over her like a hangman's noose. Leia grimaced. "They didn't stamp the name of your nearest relative on your face."

"Green is a good color for you," Han told her. "And it brings out your eyes-"

"Please shut up before I hurt you."

"Hey. I'm just trying to be nice. When did that become a crime?"

"If you assault him I'm responsible, remember," Luke contributed, not altogether helpfully. "And be grateful I got you around the microchip,"

Leia crossed her arms and huffed so forcefully her breath fogged beyond the tip of her nose. They weren't sticking one of those things in her neck while she had anything to say about it. Dissolvable and biodegradable her foot. She pointed toward the group. "I thought you said you called for ground transport. If that's it, it really looks like some sort of official receiving party."

Luke stared. "Yes, it does." His ears and cheeks reddened but it might have been the cold. "Oh, dear," he muttered. "Oops."

"Oops?" She and Han echoed together.

"I think... maybe when he went to the back... Ah... The clerk may have misinterpreted me on a few things."

"Misinterpreted you? He spoke perfect Basic. Exactly how could he have misinterpreted you?"

"It's partially my fault," he groaned. "But he was the nearest to an organic robo-hack I've ever met."

"You mean the inbreeding," Han commented dryly, pausing to sneeze again. "That's what happens in places like this."

The small party was suddenly surrounding them, holding out their hands in a universal gesture of peace and welcome, speaking rapidly in their native tongue. Leia folded her hands together at her waist, wary of breaking protocol and wanting to soak in as many details as she could. The men wore grey, loose slitted robes, draped over more traditional, Core-style clothing. Each was embroidered with matching coppery thread. Three had the same golden eyes as Sarin.

At first, Luke answered their queries with slow broken phrasing. The leader starting shaking his fists and head excitedly, and her brother began giving curt replies and following the steady stream of the language with no apparent difficulty. Leia presumed some sort of dialect change had taken place.

A man who appeared to be the youngest of the group turned Han. "We are greatly honored," he said, in surprisingly unaccented Basic. "We would have been here sooner to greet you if we had known you were coming." Almost as an afterthought, he flicked his fingers in her direction and added, "Permission to speak freely granted, Your Highness."

_Permission Granted_? Old training and gritted teeth kept her together. It was her moral imperative to play along, and this wouldn't be the first time in her life. She curtsied as gracefully as she could manage without dragging Han's greatcoat along the ground. "Thank you."

"We are so seldom graced with such honors, Your Majesty."

"There's been a bit of a misunderstanding," Luke hastened. "Perhaps I might explain-"

The man waved toward the darkening skies. "Please, please. Make haste. There's a seedstorm on the horizon. We should get you all to your guest residences before it arrives."

"_Your Majesty_?" Han coughed beside her under his breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "A seedstorm. Joy, oh joys. I think I hate it here already. Do you have any idea what's going on? I have no idea what's going on."

Leia squeezed his elbow sympathetically and guided him toward to the waiting transport. "Relax," she whispered. "We'll be fine."

Han looked increasingly worried and pale beneath his tan. "Sure we will. But I'm not in the mood to die today."

Alarm tensed her muscles. She peered back over her shoulder at the portmaster's office. "What's wrong?"

Han lifted his chin. "That thing they're leading us to is prehistoric."

Glancing ahead, she saw that their transport was the grandfather of the modern repulsor craft. Not modern, but certainly not that old. "Haven't you ever ridden in an overland craft with propellers?"

Slack-jawed, Han shook his head. "They have a glitch. They were outlawed on Corellia two decades ago because of a glitch with the propellers. _That _model. _That _make. I remember. Over a third of them had problems. I heard they sold them on the black market to a world that didn't know better."

Leia slowed her steps and took a deep breath. "Years ago though, right? They must have fixed them. If this was where they wound up I'm sure they caught on to the glitch."

"I'm not getting in it unless I check it out."

"And how do you plan to do that?"

"How about I say, 'Nice antique you've got here. Can I see the engine please and make sure I'm not going to wind up splattered?"

"Can you find a subtle way to do it?" she asked worriedly. She didn't want to question their safety standards if she could avoid it.

"I'll try."

Before boarding Han 'dropped' his comlink in such a way that it scattered to the rear of the transport. When he stooped to retrieve it, he discovered that his boot needed to be unfastened and refastened, and he accomplished that while his face was angled toward the rotator propellers. When he stood he dipped his chin in discreet nod, rapping his knuckles once on the exterior cladding – either for luck or to make sure it wouldn't crumple beneath his fist. Then he followed the crowd on board the transport.

The entire discussion en route was a jumble of strung together vowels and consonants broken by guttural exclamations. Though her ears strained in vain to make out a familiar word, they caught none save her brother's name and a form of address that perplexed her. Sensing the vibrant ring of internal awkwardness spreading in all directions, she tried without much success to suppress the perpetual tilt affecting one corner of her mouth. Han peered through the transport view-screens trying to memorize the route from the landing field.

They were delivered to a guesthouse on the edge of the Tas' property, and promptly left to unwind with assurances that they'd be looked after shortly. They declined an offer of servants.

The twitch plaguing the corner of her mouth erupted into a full-blown smile of amusement the minute they were alone again.

_Tas Luke_, they'd said repeatedly.

"They think you're a king," she sniffed amiably. "How in the world did you manage this?"

Luke stuffed his hands into his pockets. "I tried and tried to convince them I wasn't. I swear. They wouldn't hear of any of it. As far as I could make out, Yashuvhu hasn't had royal visitors in over a decade. Since the Emperor, anyway. So this, me, is rather exciting for them."

"From what fairytale did this misunderstanding spring from?" Han called, withdrawing a handheld scanner from his inside jacket pocket and beginning to sweep.

"Well." Luke scratched at his temple and smoothed back a lock of hair. "Their logic is very simple actually, and sort of difficult to argue with." He turned to address Leia specifically. "Because you, by birthright, are nobility, by birthright I'm also nobility. In addition, because you're female by Yashuvhi law I must have a title higher than you. So if you're a princess them I'm a..."

"King?" Han completed. "And it doesn't matter that if pressed to name the five Ruling Houses of Alderaan you would only know one?"

"Apparently not. It also occurred to me that we had nowhere to stay anyway. And I don't know what you two have for credits but I don't have much."

The corners of her mouth remained upturned. It was perversely comical. It had never occurred to her, even after all these years of diplomatic events and government receptions, Alliance benefits, that people might find her title confusing if they didn't know more of their complicated background. It had never occurred to her that Luke would accidentally stumble into regal shoes as a result, that it would be so ennobling for him. What did occur to her, after watching him bamboozle his way through his apologies and embarrassing their hosts, was that instruction on how to _act _as an intergalactic dignitary might come in handy for the future.

They waited until Han had completed sweeping the sloping walls. The scanner didn't bleep or ping in alarm; nothing indicated hidden listening devices. "I do believe," he announced, "That unless they have state of the art technology buried in the walls that can evade New Republic scanners - and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they don't after the ride here - we're the sort of guests who can speak freely and leave at their leisure."

"As opposed to what other kind?" Leia asked, winking, knowing full well what he meant.

"The kind that can't," Han winked back. "The kind I don't want to be. Should I say it first? Those datapads are sounding familiar again. And I'm the skeptic."

Luke studied the skylighted geodesic dome over his head and took his time responding. "This is a random coincidence. I'm here as me, not Niras. They're calling me a king because my sister is a princess. If I'd come here six months ago, we'd be in the same position."

"We had no reason to be here six months ago," Han replied dubiously, cracking open the visitor's guide. "They might not be throwing jewels at you but it's eerie. I don't like it."

It was eerie. Leia suppressed the tired voice at the back of her mind that agreed with him and shot him a stern reminder to be more judicious. Then she began inspecting the various placards stationed just inside the entrance, familiarizing herself with the basic household devices. Yashuvhi script topped each placard; helpfully translated beneath into aurebesh was the function of each correlating button. Beneath the glyphs and written communication, in case no common language was found, were rebus pictorials, identifying controls for the holo-unit, food, security.

Their accommodations were uniquely Yashuvhi. Opulent was the first word that came to mind, though they weren't nearly as plush and expensive as Xizor's palace had been. Two vaulted corridors branched off the airy communal living space and open kitchen. The entablatures between the architrave and cornices in the main room bore a richly ornamented frieze, made up of glyphs representing sunrise and sunset. Curvilinear patterns dominated every facet of décor, every architectural design, from the most massive structures, such as the overhead skylights that stretched at least twice her height and were oval in shape, to the diminutive drawer handles.

_Without edges_.

It wasn't merely the name of the world. It was a philosophy. It was an architectural style. A novitiate to anthropology would not have missed the religious undertones either.

Across the room, Han began muttering excitedly to himself. "Oh look here! Luke, you're not going to believe this."

"Believe what?"

"They have a museum here! You know that ship that crashed all those years ago? The one you told me about Leia? It's _intact_! It's still _here_…"

"What ship?" Luke asked.

"The one the Jedi crashed in. A thousand year old hyperdrive system," Han marveled, taking a little hop-step and flinging himself onto the sumptuous family-sized lounge. "A thousand years old, un-tampered with, un-updated, un-altered. You can hardly find blueprints for that style of fusion generator anymore. It's a relic! It's an antique! We don't even know what materials they were using for the reactor cores back then… It was all ancient beacons and jump gates…"

Her mechanically inclined sibling's curiosity increased ten-fold. He pursed his lips with interest. "Oh."

Han drawled on. "It was the 'era' of the recoilless fusion generator."

"They weren't necessarily recoilless," Luke corrected. "The electro-magnetic energy used for the thrust wasn't as powerful. It took longer to reach .5, probably near a timepart."

"Oh, don't tell me you subscribe to that school of thought," Han guffawed "You're a pilot, you should know better. I say whatever antimatter they favored absorbed the thrust and softened the transition." Han widened his eyes and lowered his voice for effect. "It got lost in the technological shuffle. If we could just find a sample now, we've got the capabilities to recreate it… why, we'd be richer than-"

"Both of you," she interrupted. "Before this goes on for hours?"

Han shrugged. "She doesn't want me to say it. She knows I'll wind up saying it again."

"Say what?" Luke grinned mischievously.

Leia groaned knowing exactly what was coming next. All of their discussions wound up the same way.

As if she didn't _already _know, as if she hadn't been taught the _same _historical facts in grade school, he tapped into old Corellian bragging rights: "If it wasn't for us there never would have been a Republic in a first place, because there never would have been any interstellar exploration and all of us would be sitting at home in our own star systems twiddling our thumbs and wondering what was out there."

Luke delivered another groan. "Or, if they're right, and all human stock evolved on Corellia, we'd all still be sitting there today anyway so it wouldn't make a difference."

"It would be a lot more crowded."

She gave up. Privately Leia was pleased to see her brother join in and relax. They were funny that way. Bonding between the two men was primarily fomented over hyperdrive theories and teasing her. As much as she wouldn't have admitted it then and there, being around Han when he was in one of his not-so-serious moods was ultimately good for everyone's mental health. She opted to leave the caballing pair and explore.

The hallways gently split at either end, curved to prevent sharp turns. Each hall ended with a pair of bedrooms. The bedrooms, like the main room, were geodesic domes of sorts, cornerless, though not as uniformly circular. The furniture was the same, edgeless and done in beautifully handcrafted softwoods. The beds and bathtubs were round too.

The first wing was decorated in dark, depressing, colors, browns and autumnal tones, leading her to guess that the opposing suites would reflect an entirely contrasting atmosphere. Her expectations were proved correct. The second wing was aglow in lighter, more feminine hues, golds and oranges. She ventured into one of the freshers and startled herself, having temporarily forgotten about the design on her cheek. After a moment's inspection, she decided it wasn't too terrible. It was the size of one finger, curving from the end of her brow around her ocular socket. The elaborate script was Luke's name and relation to her, but she only knew that because she'd been told so at the customs office. Ignorance mollified her to a degree; had she been able to read it, it would have been more disturbing. She wet her finger and rubbed it over a corner but it didn't smudge. The agent had told her it would last a week.

Though Kadann's writings had said that _Niras _would return home, Leia found herself wandering through the house with a distinct sense of déja-vu, as though it were she, and not Luke who Kadann claimed belonged here. It occurred to her that it might be a twin thing; maybe this world was familiar to Luke and she was tapping into it.

Then again, she assured herself, it might not be Yashuvhu. Being a guest at a royal palace, even after all these years, still had a memorable air about it. She'd been used to traveling this way growing up, visiting her father's friends, their relatives. So much so in fact that it had been years before she grasped the meaning of 'high style'. In all fairness, her father's travels were more often then not educational. At a young age she'd been toted along on official trips, much to her aunt's chagrin. His 'good luck charm', Bail had called her. Her aunts thought otherwise.

_A six year old has no business being exposed to the vagaries of life_, her Aunt Celly had lectured her brother, in the high pitched whiny voice one could hear from any corner of the house.

_That _conversation had taken place hours after she'd announced to her Aunt Tia that when she grew up, she wanted to be one of the girls who wore the blue gowns during Capital Season in the Tapani Sector. It had been all about the dresses, made of shimmering spun lace and synthetic wildflowers. Naturally, at six, she'd been enamoured with them. It had taken her ten years to figure out why her aunt was so upset, that the 'Women in Blue' as they were called, were actually elite courtesans from neighboring Procopia.

Han loved the story dearly.

In retrospect, it was a habit her father had begun soon after her adopted mother, his wife, had died. He'd undoubtedly been lonely. Maybe having a child to entertain had provided a needed distraction. After the trip to the Tapani Sector, her aunts had put an end to it all, and her father had quickly been so caught up in his own affairs it wasn't until she was near her teens, trying so hard to be like him, to impress him, that he'd stopped and taken notice of her again. Then she'd been more his protégée than a daughter. She was thinking about that particular trip, and Bail Prestor Organa, fiddling with the atmospheric controls, when Han sneaked up behind her, enveloping her in something soft and warm.

"There you are," he proclaimed triumphantly, as if he'd been searching and searching for her. (In fact, not two minutes ago Leia had heard him trying to sucker Luke back into his electro-magnetic energy versus the recoilless fusion generator debate).

Immediately she picked up on the change in his tone. "You sound remarkably recovered for someone who thought they were going to lock us up when we landed and was afraid to fly with them."

"I did not," he protested. "Besides, they never asked for my weapon. That always makes me feel right at home."

Leia doubted that was the extent of it. "And?"

"And I'm going to throw up a few security devices outside just in case. I have no idea what sort of security features they have going on. We have no idea what other guests they might be keeping. After that, I'll feel like I've got this under control."

"Luke will know if anything's odd is afoot too," she reassured him.

"You know before I met you they used to call _me _a one-man sensor suite."

"You still are," she reassured him, glancing down at herself. His arms were swathed in a downy roan-colored shawl. Like the robes the receiving party had worn, it was elegantly embroidered with black and gold. "Where did you get this?"

"Someone must have noticed we don't have much in the way of luggage. They dropped off a few gifts."

"It's beautiful."

"So are you." Han kissed her eye and walked her toward the window. Each wing had its own private double tinted balcony; an indoor section, shielded from inclement weather and winds by thick glass, and an outdoor section protected by a meandering balustrade that appeared more ornamental than functional.

She told him about her feeling that Yashuvhu was somehow familiar. Han agreed it was likely that her years of traveling were melded together, but he thought she should check to see if her brother was picking up the same vibes. And he told her the guide was disturbing.

He said. "They have a crazy sort of open marriage market, and by market, I mean market, with credits and bids."

Leia wrinkled her nose. "Sarin alluded to it. I know that women are considered transferable property. Father to son. Son to husband. Husband to sons. They're discouraged from working and forbidden from governing."

The winds howled bitterly and the encroaching seedstorm was still a violet darkened even on the horizon. There was something asthenic about being trapped in doors during inclement weather, almost lazy.

Yesterday she'd settled for Han promising that nothing would be said unless her brother asked him directly. It was the best he'd been willing to give and she'd taken it, knowing he wouldn't change his mind and that if their situations were reversed, had he been asking her to lie to Luke, she would have refused to do it. Her own hypocrisy had been apparent to her before she'd even left the _Falcon_, though she hadn't been willing to admit it. There remained a few other items of interest she'd yet to share with her brother. They weren't secrets, but they tapped too deeply into her life of late, too deeply into the insecurities she'd been facing on Baskarn.

But she told Han. "Before the Jedi here were murdered, there were special roles designated for women who were Force sensitive here. They were – Sarin said they were selected to carry children for the Jedi, and that they were deeply honored by the people."

Han made a disgruntled sound under his breath. "They gave up their children?"

She nodded. "Many of them did. He said not all but I got the impression most did."

Consciously or unconsciously his arms tensed around her. "You know, between the marriage markets and their old traditions, I'm starting to think maybe this wasn't the best world for you to make your debut as the sister of a Jedi."

Images of Han fighting off would-be-suitors darted through her mind. "That's silly."

"Is it? You and your brother both represent losses and tragedies in their past. People don't always like that. Sometimes it's hard to predict how they'll react."

Quietly, Leia found herself nodding in agreement. "I hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right. Still, currently, they seem eager to fawn over Luke. Hopefully they'll be equally eager to help him."

"Aha. That reminds me."

"Of what?"

"We have an invitation to a welcome dinner at the residence of _The Tas Mos'ir_."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

* * *

The name 'Luke Skywalker' was not to be found in the headlines.

Luke was lounging in their common area, flipping Holonet channels and searching for it. It was possible to watch recorded Senate proceedings on Coruscant and he did for a time, only to find the issue of that particular day was applications of interplanetary tax shelters. He wasn't sure what sort of receiver Yashuvhu had set up, but it was quite clear they were not so cut off from the rest of the universe as he'd initially thought. Apparently, they received channels from any world that shared its feed with the galactic receivers. Randomized flipping revealed a large number of local programs, though at first glance they appeared more for educational purpose than entertainment.

There was no mention of the _Razion's Edge _or the death of the men on Baskarn, no mention of his escape. The omission of Baskarn didn't surprise him, as the planet was unknown to all but the highest New Republic echelons and those who served there. Beyond that Leia's judgments were astute. None of the recent events was being made public. They didn't want the galaxy to know a Rebellion hero had murdered their own. Maybe the legend meant more to them than the truth. He wondered how, in light of that, they were handling news of his parentage.

He'd wondered in the past about how it would be when he was known as Vader's son, but that was before he'd done anything so unflinchingly worthy of his father's legacy.

The weak imitation Bellibringi caf he was sipping turned terribly bitter on his tongue. Here he was, free on an Outer Rim world, when many in High Command were no doubt clamoring for a trial and the death sentence. He barely knew the names of his victims, and though he might have asked Han, he'd been unable to bring himself to do it.

_You're here to find answers_, he instructed himself silently. _Then you can decide what to do. _Or, as his aunt used to say, _you can't make water while the suns shine_. The moisture vaporators did ninety percent of their work at night. Whenever patience was in order or her exasperation with him or Owen peaked, Beru would also say, _everyone complains about the heat but no one sees fit to do anything about it_. It had not been her habit to entertain futile whining or grumbling from either of the men that she called family.

Luke returned to a Coruscanti channel and was still scanning headlines when Leia swished into the common room, wearing one of the new lightweight dresses that had been delivered a few hours ago. The folds of the grey gown draped about her like a second skin, and though it had long sleeves her shoulders were bare. It was made of native wool, called _kuba_, and so finely spun it could have been mistaken for nova-silk, but to the touch it was downy and warmed when it came into contact with body heat. (Luke knew this because he too, had chosen native garb for the evening.) She'd fashioned her hair in a quaint Alderaani style, braids within loops of braids knotted at the nape of her neck.

He watched as Leia admired herself in the foyer mirror, lifting and arranging her new shawl, finally deciding to wrap it twice around her shoulders. The tattoo sparkled beneath the foyer lights. The portmaster had explained that women generally wore their father's name on their right, husband's on the left – though if a girl's father had passed on when she was 'adorned' they deferred to her next closest male relative in favour of whoever presented her at the ritual ceremony. Of course, _they_hadn't had a ceremony – unless Leia's icy subjugation to the 'stamping police' counted.

"Han's not back yet?" she paused to inquire.

As had been readily apparent upon landing, the pre-winter pollen was extremely potent and affected at least half of all visitors, or, in their case, one-third of their party. High southern winds and a tiny shrub called, appropriately, 'devil weed' caused the seedstorms. Han had made a return trip the _Falcon _to pick up what he called his 'wonder cure'.

"No," he replied.

The scrolling scenes on Coruscant Live were familiar, and the Embassy quarter he recognized a moment later. A mob of reporters was jostling for position before the whitewashed stone columns. Seconds later, as the holo-takers panned back, he realized it was the Alderaanian Embassy. He immediately tabbed the controller to enlarge the screen and upped the volume. "Leia, look."

"_Oh_."

Luke recognized the tall Alderaanian tycoon Yail Taskeen immediately. The master of business trade assumed center stage, informing the journalists his statements would be brief, and that he would not be taking questions afterwards. He went on to say that his donation toward the Refugee Fund would be held in trust until the next fiscal quarter. At that point, he stated that even if the New Republic could not match it, the fifty million would be released from the trust. Yail concluded the announcement by saying he and Councilor Organa would work out the finite details upon her return from assignment, and that they would have more information at that time.

The amount left Luke vaguely shocked. "Fifty million credits? This must make you happy?"

She wasn't smiling. Instead, her expression was slightly aghast and troubled. "It does – but I didn't think he'd be back for Ruuria."

He imagined that being on Yashuvhu was frustrating and that being so far from her work and the stress of abandoning her responsibilities was weighing heavily on her. "We'll get you back to Coruscant soon, don't worry. I owe you a belated congratulations. Why didn't you tell me on Baskarn?"

Her shoulders hunched and fell, but her eyes didn't leave the view-vid. "It must have slipped my mind – what with crashing our shuttle and all."

The mighty tycoon was being led away to a waiting transport, pausing to speak to a holoshill who inquired about a mining venture. Though he was absolutely positive this was an item he must have asked about on their voyage out from Coruscant, he couldn't remember her reply. Just as the foyer door sounded, he said, "Well, congratulations again."

Under her breath, Leia hissed at him. "Luke, turn it off."

"Why?"

"Just do it!"

Puzzled, Luke hit the switch. Han entered, closing the collar of his shirt, sporting a jacket and military style dress pants adorned with his Blood Stripes. The decision to wear the native style robes and trousers had not been unanimous, though his sister had pushed for it. The Corellian's expression was gleeful. "Will this do?"

"There you are!" Leia burst out, hurrying over to him and giving him a feathery kiss on the cheek. "Yes, you'll do."

Han took a deep breath in through his nose and pressed two fingers against his sinuses. "I can breathe again."

All too soon, they arrived at the Royal Palace.

Anxiousness descended on Luke like a swarm of nafens buzzing in the back of his mind. Keeping his hands carefully linked together before him, he entered trying not to gape.

The sloped walls of the central hall towered above him sky-like. Marbled opaque stone, pristine, almost virginal, vaulted about them like glistening cirrus clouds; the walls arched to a high center peak through which the night was visible. If someone had told him the walls were made of ice he would have believed them, and was surprised there was no chill when he purposely grazed the back of his hand along the stone. Embedded lights blazed like fire opals from within stone, showering down upon them in a dusty pink. In contrast, the floors were blacked over as though to compensate for the overbearing brilliance above. Evenly arranged throughout were several round tables with low stools. There was no other furniture.

The hall was flush with dozens of dignitaries and nimiety. The scent of wine was heavy in the air, reaching his nose before the scent of foods or perfume. Gold eyes flashed curiously toward their small party. Luke had assumed that Sarin's eye-color was a rare trait but gold was as common here as his sky blue, possessing its own rainbow of shades and variations.

The Tas himself marched forward to greet them, flanked by his 'Receiving party,' or advisors. He was a middle-aged man, long-limbed and long-faced, with a full beard the color of nightwine. His caftan was coppery-brown and brushed the floors when he moved. Luke preformed a half bow, feeling fairly competent and self-assured after Leia's tutelage. He found his double-clasped hand being pumped forcefully up and down. He managed to make the presentations of his 'party' in Yashuvhi, and then the _Tas Mos'ir_, as he presented himself, complimented him on his command of a language no one in the Core would deign to study, and for speaking the arcane dialect of the heliocentric sects.

_Sun worshippers_, Luke thought, as his past and present slid so that they were superimposed over one another, and an old riddle was solved. He noticed that the banquet hall was divided; one side for men, one side for women and the evening's first awkward moment occurred after the introductions were complete.

Han watched unhappily as an usher took Leia's elbow and guided her off. Then he announced, "I'm going to go sit with her," resolutely, in a tone that said if anyone argued he was going to make a big, _stinking_, deal out of this.

"With the women?" The Tas inquired, amused, saying 'women' the same way one might say 'children.'

"Yes, with the _women_," Han clarified, dragging Luke off to the side, and hissing loud enough to be overheard. "You go find out what you need to know and play the obedient monarch or favorite son, whatever. I don't have to. I'm not a king."

Across the room, he could see Leia watching the situation with rising alarm. "Look, Han…" he began.

But Han waved him off, approach the table, drew out the chair next to Leia and seated himself with a cultivated, gentrified ease most star-rovers did not possess. The Princess looked touched and mortified by the gesture all at once. Luke heard her order him back but the Corellian picked up his wineglass and grinned, acting his usual ataractic self. "No. You sit here. I sit here. I sit there and you come with me. Understood? Either that or we go back to my ship."

_She's going to kill him_...

"That's most unfortunate," The Tas Mos'ir commented as the scene finished unfolding.

With one more lingering glance at his disobedient friend, and fighting the impulse to do the same lest his sister deem him less a man for kowtowing to tradition, Luke shrugged noncommittally. This was what being diplomatic was all about, right? If Han insisted on sitting with Leia, _unfortunate _was not the first word that came to mind. Hotheaded, brash, maybe even antagonistic in the face of the Tas' hospitality, but that was Han and Han wouldn't be Han if he didn't find a way to offend someone in the process of sticking to whatever code of ethics it was he followed. Or maybe he was just intent on sticking with the Princess tonight.

On the other hand, it wasn't as if the pirate's actions were contagious or starting any sort of trend amongst the other husbands and men folk. They all gawked momentarily, long enough to see that it wasn't one of those fuzzy illusions the corner's of one's sight so often created, and then moved on to whatever items of discussion they'd been immersed in before the little debacle. The women at the table recovered instantaneously and began chatting up both of them.

"My pardon, Your Grace. He would feel he was insulting her if didn't sit with her," he explained, apologetically, already wanting to raise the semaphore flags and surrender. This wasn't the start he'd anticipated.

"I know your ways," he replied curtly. "And these are mine. Imagine how insulting it would be to me if none of my guests of honor elected to sit at my table because they preferred to sit with their womenfolk?"

One of the waiters handed him a long-stemmed glass filled with clear wine. Warm faced, Luke took three sips in a row, trying to mentally regroup.

The Mos'ir Tas noticed his discomfiture and chuckled to himself. "_Bah_. No harm done. So long as you promise to be my guest, we'll let them enjoy themselves and be this evening's scandal. And they will be, come morning. They're seated with my wives and they'll make sure of it."

_Wives_. There were near a dozen women at that table, ranging in ages over a span of decades. Just as Luke's mind was processing that, the Tas flicked his eyelashes knowingly at the pair. "He is her lover, is he not?"

Not only was his face warm but the soles of his feet were stifling inside his boots. "I think so," he mumbled, scrambling for composure again.

"That is unfortunate," he responded. "Were you seeking a husband for her you could sell her for ten times the value of that freighter you landed in. Many here would pay dearly. Better yet, _I _would pay dearly."

Luke was affronted out of his embarrassment, angry for both their sakes. Demoralizing his sister was out of bounds, no matter what he hoped to gain here. "Allow me to set this straight immediately. I'm not here to discuss any sort of dowry. She's not for sale. She won't be for sale."

The ruler considered the reply without emotion, and then clapped his hands together and pointed toward a chamber off the entranceway. "Ah. Ah. Ah. My turn for apologies. Offworld sensitivities differ greatly, don't they? I forget from time to time, or so my wives enjoy telling me. Now come along, Luke Skywalker, the Jedi who claims he is not really a king. Let's talk about why you are here, before we sit and share our conversation with the rest of our table. This way."

Luke took a deep breath to calm his presence of mind and followed. The cardinal rule of diplomacy was to set aside one's own paradigms for expected behavior, beauty, culture, and tradition, to set aside stereotypes and biases. One needed to hear what wasn't said, to behave graciously when circumstances were untoward, to be tough when the time came for it. Moreover, this wasn't actually a diplomatic event, more about making friends and alliances. There was nothing he could offer the Tas in exchange for his help, thus he wasn't in an enviable position to barter. The options he had consisted of the direct approach; ask if they'd ever heard of Niras Qu'aristoff, if the name Sarin meant anything to them, ask if they had any records left by their healers, ask them about the Jedi. Or, he could hint around and see if anyone paid him particular attention. Leia was the one who was extremely talented at this brand of nosy politicking, but due to their customs, she would be of little assistance.

Together they slipped into the smaller chamber, whereupon the sniffling, chirping, and patter of tiny feet surrounded them in rapid onslaught. Four dog-sized creatures, covered in brilliant green feathers, immediately chirped and rushed to the Tas' feet. Their snouts were short and scantily plumed, and their tails thwacked excitedly, _rat-a-tat-tat_. Their darting eyes regarded him excitedly.

"My duuvhals are my watchguards," the Tas explained proudly.

Instinctively, like with the Yrashu on Baskarn, Luke concentrated on making himself appear non-threatening and allowing them to be curious. They all calmed down and moved into sentinel stances around the Tas, but for one, which crept toward him and chirped, sniffing his feet. He spied the hollow ended fangs as he reached down to stroke its feathered head, pausing a fraction of a second before scratching the ruff of its neck. "They're venomous?" he wondered.

All traces of a long-serving statesman melted and were replaced by a more convivial, boastful mien. "Indeed. Toxic to most humanoids and loyal to the death. I trained them in my youth. Ah, but I see that he likes you."

The creature began rubbing its cheeks around his ankles. "I think so."

"A pair of Wookiee traders rescued that one many years ago from a Kuati circus. Although..." The Tas Mos'ir eyed his cowing pet curiously. "I can't say I've ever seen him take to a stranger so easily."

The boots he was wearing had been stuffed in a closet alongside Chewbacca's berth for ages now. Recalling that Leia had been brushing long hairs off of Han's suit the entire ride here, Luke blithely imagined summoning Han in for an experiment, wondering what would happen if the creature got a whiff of him. It kept spinning around his boots as though it were a lovelorn bantha.

"According to my ears you are here to perform research in an unofficial capacity for the New Republic. Although you were not born on Alderaan and hold no formal ties to its ruling family other than by proxy, you are still a leader of your kind. By this, naturally I refer to your heir apparent role as teacher of future Jedi.

"You're correct on all points, Your Grace."

"You told my advisors you were here for research?"

"Yes." As his instincts had guided him to calm the alien pets, they steered him towards probity. "I'm here to uncover what I can about your Jedi."

"They died like all the rest."

Luke nodded sympathetically. "I am aware of that."

"Furthermore, everything that could be destroyed was. There is little to find. Your queries will be fruitless, I can assure you."

"Were public records destroyed?" The lives of Sarin or Niras would be noted somewhere.

"The Jedi records weren't public. Nor our healer's records. There will be nothing of them."

The pessimistic voice at the back of his mind chattered. _Even records. Face it; there will be nothing left here. You knew that before you came_. Luke pressed on. "With your permission I'd like to search through them anyway. If nothing else remains, even memories would be helpful to me. Those that knew them, your Jedi, if they're willing to talk to me."

The Tas shrugged, clearly indicating that his benevolent attitude waned. "That's all you want? I think you have a hidden agenda. I think-" He withdrew a tiny silver disk from a pocket deep within the folds of his robes. "That _this _request from your _own _government to alert them of your arrival is most interesting."

"I see," Luke murmured, unconsciously tapping his pant leg. The square metallic disk Han had given him was in his pocket. He'd been carrying it with him ever since Tatooine, trying to work up the nerve to listen to it, and made the mistake of not leaving it on board the _Falcon_. Tonight he'd felt uneasy leaving it at their accommodations. Now it burned against his thigh as though it were soaked in acid. The very rompish duuvhal jumped at his moving hand for attention. He paused to scratch the crown of feathers again. "Well, I suppose they're concerned about us arriving safely."

The Tas Mos'ir slipped his hands and the disk into the great gilded cuff of his caftan. "I'm extremely concerned about anyone who might stir up trouble or sow dissention here. We're a peaceful world that no one cares about, and we'd prefer not to acquire the far away sentiments of government which barely holds claim to thirty percent of the galaxy."

_The controlling thirty percent, the most powerful thirty percent_, Luke mentally amended but did not say. Instead, he attempted to assuage his concerns. "I'm not here to cause you any trouble."

The assurance landed on deaf ears. "I am _not _interested in being romanced by the New Republic. We're nearer to the capital of the Corporate Sector than we are to Coruscant. We are – in case you've not been educated adequately - completely self-sufficient. Our Tas before me, my father included, made sure of that. Our proximity to any other civilized world is more effective than a thousand star-destroyers on patrol to protect us." A finger slipped free of the caftan again and pointed toward the hall that led to the dining area. "I see a galaxy renowned diplomat, a New Republic leader in my hall and I am rightly mistrustful of your intentions."

"We're not here to make you any sort of offer," Luke promised, feeling certain Leia had suspected all along there wasn't an iota of a chance that any sort of diplomatic bid would be well-received. To be on the safe side, he added, "My sister is not involved at all. She's merely here as my personal support. If my reputation precedes me at all, if you know of me, you know I would not come here and lie to you. It's not the way of the Jedi, of my order. Beyond that..." He opened his free hand palm up. "I can give you nothing other than my word. We're not here to assemble a Yashuvhi coalition to join the New Republic." On a whim, he decided to kill two birds with one stone to put the leader's mind at ease. "In truth, I'd actually prefer it if you didn't transmit any sort of reply to that message. Maintain your silence, if you will."

The Tas tugged on his beard and smiled. The smile was an eerie gesture that stretched his lips tight over his teeth. "Very well then. I will you give you my one and only warning that my hospitality will end the moment you break your word."

"I won't break my word."

"We'll see." The Tas tapped at an ancient comm system atop his desk. "Please send Hataj in." Then he glanced back at Luke. "I'd like you to meet someone."

Moments later an ebony haired woman entered with her eyes down. Luke suddenly had a terrible feeling this was once again related to marriage markets and dowries. He bit his tongue and waited to see what it was about.

"Speak freely," the Tas commanded. "Hataj Yva, I'd like you to meet Luke Skywalker."

The girl tightened her shawl, looked up and gave him a scathing glare that actually unnerved him to the quick. Her jaw was square and strong, her nose straight, almost regal, but flecks of black against the gold of her eyes had made her appear nearly as feral as the wild creatures huddled at the Tas' foot-side.

"A pleasure to meet you," Luke forced himself to say.

She raised a thick ebony eyebrow etched with green and gold. "Likewise."

"How is your Uncle these days, my dear?" the Tas asked.

The 'my dear' caused her to bristle slightly but her tone remained smooth. "He's well enough."

"Inform him he'll have company the afternoon after tomorrow. And yourself, as well." He motioned to Luke. "You'll bring your sister for yammansk, and her consort."

Her eyes cut to him, radiating an amorphous and wild hatred. "I'll tell him you said so Cousin. I'm sure he'll only be too happy to obey your wishes."

Luke's sound impression was that she disdained him fiercely. Usually he could pinpoint the moment he'd done something terribly offensive or inappropriate, but occasionally just being Luke Skywalker was enough to garner ill feeling. He let his senses stretch out toward her, insides growing cold.

For what he felt defied nature as he knew it.

Watching her stand beneath the glare of the Tas, he realized even with her temper blazing – and he could tell by the flash in her eyes it was - he sensed _nothing _in her. Not life, not emotion, not the Force. Paradoxically, at the same time, the Force was converging around her as though she was a centrifugal source sucking it in more powerfully with every turn. It simply didn't touch her. It was like listening to a heartbeat from deep within the caverns of a chest of a person whose eyes stared vacantly at nothing, like hearing blood pump through their body yet finding their hand ice cold to the touch.

He closed his eyes, reaching out again, blinked, and realized the woman was gone. The Tas was speaking.

"I said, did you make a sound impression of her?"

Finding his tongue dry, Luke wet his mouth with his wine. "Not so quickly."

"I though Jedi were skilled that way. Perhaps you are not."

Squeezing the flute of his glass tightly, Luke held his silence. By reaching out to Hataj so earnestly through the Force, he'd become freshly conscious of a new emotion, a faint sense without meaning to. There was an aura of deceit present, running between himself and the Tas. Not exactly outright lying, but blindsiding tactics, the withholding of facts when they should be presented, so that everyone's cards were safe for the time being. There was a reason for the meeting that had just taken place and there was a motive for his going to meet with her. And he didn't understand what he'd just felt.

The other disturbing thought reoccurred to him. Maybe the motive was simple. Wiping a palm on his thigh, and shaking his head at his adopted shadow, still crouched by his side and begging for attention, Luke said, "I hope I've done nothing to mislead you. I'm not here in search of-"

The Tas began laughing. "A mate? A wife? Not at all. But I would like you to tell me what you think of her after your meeting. And you must promise to give me your honest account. In exchange for her uncle's help. He was employed by the local healers as some type of assistant and if anyone has the information you're seeking, it would be he."

The information kick-started his brain. Maybe that's what he had sensed, though why the Tas would have been hiding it from him if he was going to mention it eventually...

There was no more time to contemplate. The Tas was gesturing to the outside hall, swinging his arm wildly. "Let us go eat."

* * *

"I don't know how you can stand what you do for a living," Luke moaned. The wee hours of morning had arrived before they'd escaped the royal palace. He lay slumped across the couch with his legs dangling over the armrest. His stomach ached from the innumerable courses and the harsh overhead lights of their common room stung his eyes after their walk back in the dark. No one had quite figured out the controls for it as of yet. He dragged a cushion over his face to block it out.

"Who are you talking to?" Han asked. "Me or her?"

"_Her_."

"His Grace couldn't have been that bad," Leia answered, tugging the cushion away. "It was one dinner. I've been to so many I lost count years ago. I lost count before I ever met you."

"Then there's been some sort of terrible mistake. We're not related after all. You didn't sit next to him for six hours. That was… That was the longest dinner of my life. I'd rather... I'd rather clean the freshers in Imperial Palace for a living."

"Congratulations and welcome to my world," Leia laughed, catching herself astutely. "But will he help us?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes." The truth was, once seated at the dinner table, the Tas had been most interested in talking about himself. "We didn't work out any details but I can tell you all about his dozen pet duuvhals, how much they eat, how well trained they are, the time his favorite one attacked an intruder and saved his life. I can tell you about the dowries of his eleven wives, who got the most jewelry. I can tell you about his eleven weddings -"

Han burst out laughing. "And _that _wasn't entertaining? Now I'm glad I never snuck over to pay my respects."

"You did a fine job of paying your respects," Luke intoned, now that that subject had been broached. "That was exactly what I needed to happen in the first five minutes of meeting the Tas of Yashuvhu."

"You're very welcome, Ambassador Skywalker. According to his wives it's happened before so I'm not quite as original as I thought." Han mussed a front-swept wing of hair and flashed his teeth. "But I'm a very popular dinner date now. All the ladies said so."

Luke gave Leia a moment to step in, since usually a comment like that would draw its fair share of ridicule, but it appeared she too, was one of the aforementioned smitten ladies. They were holding hands and huddled close. It was lovely moment for revenge. He narrowed his eyes at Han. "How much exactly is ten times the price of the _Millennium Falcon_?"

"Who wants to know?"

"That's the opening bid from the Tas for Lei-"

"You wouldn't dare!" Leia exclaimed, smacking a fist against his cushion. "Don't even joke about it."

Luke scrambled for cover. "_All right, all right_... Anyway, we're to have yammansk with his cousin the day after tomorrow. Apparently he wants me to see what I think of her and her uncle used to work for the healers here."

"Yammansk?" she wondered, her fist still raised and waiting.

"I think it's a fancy sort of tea. Or I hope it is." He rolled off the couch with a yawn. "But for now, I'm going to bed and when I wake up I pray there are no other dinner invitations waiting for me. If there are, I want you to rip them up into tiny pieces and dispose of them in the fresher. Feed them to the duuvhals."

"Good night, Luke," Leia called after him.

In the background, Han started saying, "I told you so..."

He washed his face then decided the heavily salted dinner had left him very thirsty. Deciding to brave the myriad of native beverages in their kitchen, he started back down the hallway wondering how it was that that the Force could be so helplessly focused around one individual. He wondered if it somehow had blocked him from him from sensing more of her. Thinking of auras and Sarin, he tried to imagine what the old healer would have seen, and knew deep down that the uppermost stratum, the troposphere, of whatever puzzle was here had been unveiled.

If he'd been less sleepy, less comatose from too much food, less distracted, he might have noticed that the air was tingling. He might have noticed the whiff of heightened excitement up ahead. Instead he marched straight on into the darkened kitchen and caught his sister and Han lip-locked against the counter in what was at best, a slightly indecent position involving misarranged clothing.

He stuttered, "Oh, oh, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," and startled them both. Then, because he was too flustered to turn around or keep going, he clamped his hands over his eyes and froze, just as his brain brought the last image it had captured slowly into focus. "I was just fetching a drink," he mumbled.

Han cleared his throat. "Uh… you're welcome to get a drink. That's what we came in here for."

Only then did he remember to tell them what he'd forgotten to on the walk. "The New Republic is looking for us."


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

* * *

After a late breakfast, their transport arrived to take them to pick them up. Though the sun was bright and the skies were clear, the day promised to be colder than the day before, with a damp sort of cold that soaked right down to the bone and lingered all day. Han copped out, saying he'd be of better use checking the city center and their landing records. Neither Luke nor Leia had argued with him.

They'd gotten little accomplished during the previous day. They'd had a full tour of the estates, including refreshments. They'd visited three museums and a school. The Jedi ship ended up being a replica, much to both men's disappointment, and as far as replicas went, there were at least twenty visible flaws Han had been able to _see _that made the ship un-spaceworthy. The gods only knew what they would have found in the engine room, but that had been closed to the public. For Leia, the day had been one long adventure in being seen and not heard, though the restrictions had not been so overbearing in their tiny circle.

Women could not speak to a Yashuvhi male without first being addressed, or introduced by a relative. They could not wander in the city alone, though they could together. They didn't even speak amongst themselves on the streets; at least not the groups were groups of women and children she'd seen so far. Although they were extremely well-educated and versed on any number of subjects, they were encouraged to marry and tend to their families, not apply themselves to careers, and then, if they wished a career they were forced to acquire permission from their relatives again.

However, beyond the quasi-enforceable restrictions, they were cherished and they were loved. There were statues and murals of women everywhere. There were carvings of beautiful women with flowing locks and swollen bosoms, knee-high children and tools in hand. The culture obviously romanticized the role of mother, of the family ideal, of the family unit as it was aspired to by so many cultures.

Moreover, like so many worlds, Yashuvhu was not without its unique idiosyncrasies. In light of the fact that it was a male-dominated society, in light of the fact that women were not allowed to rule, a women could be convicted of no crime, no punishment could be meted out against her. Nor could she be imprisoned unless it was to prevent self-inflicted damage, and then, there were alternative facilities for that. If she killed her husband – they said he had not _loved _her well enough.

Leia didn't understand how love factored into arranged marriages in the first place nut she supposed it was a very convenient manner to dispose of an unwanted husband to begin with, and suspected it ultimately impacted the choices their families made. Liberties existed for them then. Bearing all that she learned in mind, she didn't understand why women keep their silence, why they never fought to live as equals among the men when they could be penalized for nothing. What stopped them? She'd discussed it with Han, lying in bed late last night, and he agreed it was odd, but pointed out often societies like this had invisible freedoms an offworlder couldn't discern at first study. Alternatively, he'd suggested, perhaps being able to serve one's husband a 'Togorian hangover' without fear of reprisal had an even greater appeal. Leia wished she'd printed off more of the anthropological reports when she'd done her research.

This morning was the first occasion she and her brother had had to be alone in days. Thankfully, there was no mention of the kitchen, for which Leia was grateful. The mortification was washing away slowly. They _had _been on their way to their room and they _had _detoured for a glass of water. And well, _stang_, Luke had already said good night.

Luke didn't hedge his way around the _other _topic she hoped to avoid.

"Are you going to tell me what had you so panicked the on the Holonet other night?"

Luke's voice, repeating, "_fifty million credits_," echoed like the beat of an automatic drum. Han's reaction in their quarters on Baskarn had been much the same, and she _knew_, now matter what she did or said, that they would draw conclusions that weren't true, that they might believe she'd been willing to go to any lengths to obtain those funds for the Refugee's Fund. She hated thinking about it. It paved the way for moral quandaries she never wanted to face. People based alliances and political marriages on less than credits and honor every day across the universe.

"Han would have insisted on checking the smashball scores and then we would have been late," she replied. It tumbled freely from her lips so facilely, she almost wondered if part of her brain had secretly planned the response for her. She cursed herself for not having used it yesterday. Of course, it was a lie. And of course, Luke knew it, but she wasn't facing him – she was peering out the window at the reddish leaves and deep violet landscape bearing the fruit of the seedstorm like a heavy winter blanket. Eligel Proper reminded her of Alderaan's North Thonin late autumn.

He said, "Uh huh."

"You know how he can be?" she added.

"I guess so," he replied, sounding less than satisfied with her answer.

They grav-sled deposited them at a small dwelling in the rear of the market district, and were greeted by a solemn faced girl she was certain she'd seen at the dinner, though they hadn't spoken. They might have been the same age, or within a few years of each other - was difficult to discern. Her straight shoulder-length hair was gathered untidily behind her shoulders. She wore skirts of the same kuba wool Leia had grown so fond of over the past few days. Without saying a word, she waved her arm and bid them to enter.

"Good morning." Luke said.

Apparently, restrictions did not apply within one's own home. Like so many others, her Basic was flawless. Clacking her heels hard against the floors, she replied, "It's actually nearer to afternoon."

"Afternoon, then," her brother amended, his tone normal though those that knew him well would have recognized the forced pleasantness. "This is my sister Leia Organa."

They weren't welcome. That much was immediately apparent. Animosity hung thickly in the air.

"I know who you both are," she stated coolly, seating herself in the only single chair, at the head of the low table. Leia followed suit and sat on the dual sofa. Luke sat beside her. A table was already laid out for them, cups and tiny saucers, bowls with scattered herbs, a pot of water tiered above a flame in the center, two flasks. "And I don't care. I didn't want you to come. However, I'm stuck with you here in my home. You can have your yammansk, as His Majesty wishes it, and leave. Tell him whatever you like. It won't make a difference to me."

Her brother's face flickered with confusion. "Have I missed something? I'd be happy to leave if that's what you'd like, but I'm unclear on..." He shrugged. "Well, firstly, I have no idea why I'm here or why your Tas asked me to come, and secondly, I have no idea what I've done to insult you. It didn't escape my notice the other evening either."

Their hostess found this amusing. "How intuitive? Did your enhanced senses supply you with all of my emotions or does a dirty look say it." She snorted. "As for His Majesty, what did he tell you."

"He wanted me to meet you. And your uncle. You're his cousin?"

"Oh, barely," she scoffed. "Our lineage is so distant I could throw a stone from my end of the family tree and it wouldn't land anywhere near him. Not that I would mind," she muttered viciously, "If it hit him in the head and did some major damage."

Luke practically tipped out of his seat, coughing. "You're not close then, I take it?"

A swift, startling laugh sounded. "What do you think, Jedi?" But upon seeing that her guests looked completely flummoxed, she mellowed, unexpectedly. "No. Not while I live and breathe. Never." She lifted a bowl of dried leaves and sifting them onto a trivet, breaking the larger pieces with her fingers. "And I suppose the sooner we begin the sooner this will be over with. I don't know about you but I'd prefer it be over sooner."

"Well then," Luke replied, perfectly platonically. "In that case we may as well be practical"

"Practical, yes," the girl returned.

_We'll toss civility to the duuvhals_, Leia thought, paying close attention, curious as to whether the preparations were ritualistic or religious. Hataj lifted a fist-sized pestle and pounded viciously at the tealeaves. When the mixture was pulverized to her satisfaction, she bowed her head and said a quick prayer over the leave ashes, then lifted a flask and drizzled the contents over the trivet. Then she lit potent smelling incense and said another prayer before lifting the trivet and spilling the contents into the pot of boiling water. Throughout the process, Leia made several game attempts at conversation for her brother's sake, but her queries were dismissed.

The first cups of yammansk were served and the afternoon droned on.

The drink had a tangy aftertaste to it, a blend of exotic spices and sweeteners which contained a mild calming agent. It was enough to make Leia feel relaxed in a languorous way, and sleepy from the lack of conversation. Maybe the beverage was used to facilitate conversation although she suspected their hostess had developed something of an immunity to it during her lifetime. It had little or no effect on her. Nor on Luke, Leia noted, who periodically asked when she expected her uncle to arrive.

"Soon," was her constant reply.

After an hour, the awkward scenario had yet to lessen and the uncle had yet to appear. After three cups she needed the fresher and was feeling quite lethargic. She asked for directions and excused herself. On her way back she lingered in the hall, hoping that alone her brother would be able to sort out whatever reason it was the Tas had arranged this meeting.

The stone labyrinth of narrow arching halls retracted in all directions like the tentacles of a sea serpent. The home was not unlike the ringed layout of many ships, and then she didn't know if it was another architectural variation on the circle or strictly a coincidence. While examining the two-dimensional portraits lining the mantles, Leia missed a turn. It was simple enough, Curiosity, fatigue, and absent-mindedness were all to blame. When she realized she was lost it was only because she was staring into what appeared to be an office, and straight through a set of double doorways she could see Luke and Hataj in the main room. Supposing she may as well cut across to them rather than go back around, she stepped inside.

Not quite clear headed to begin with, her surroundings mutated into an untamed whirl of colors and movements and voices. Lightheaded, she rubbed at her eyes and took a deep breath. The room settled again but it had all changed. It was no longer an office with a desk and chairs and volumes of handheld books adorning the shelves along the walls. It was a bedroom with an oval shaped vanity and cushions piled in the corners. A woman was sleeping on a bed, curled on her side; her sparse hair scattered like abandoned cobwebs across her pillow.

_Oh no_, Leia thought, backstepping quietly, mortified to have stumbled into this woman's bedchamber. _Someone's asleep here_. The door through which she'd entered was no longer behind her, and though she spun full circle, her egress had vanished. Wall after wall after wall surrounded her and the woman on the bed was staring, panicked, eyes bolted wide.

"Pardon me. I'm lost," Leia ventured. "I thought..."

The woman didn't answer, though her mouth gaped wide and her legs flailed beneath the heavy blanketing, tearing the sheets and reaching for her stomach.

_Maybe she can't understand you_, Leia thought, spinning again. The door was still mysteriously absent. By her second pivot, she could plainly see that the woman appeared downright leukemic and extremely ill. Her lips were bluish and her skin flushed. Spittle dribbled over her lower lip into her hair. She bridged the distance to the bedside, abruptly more worried than concerned about the accidental intrusion. "Shall I call someone for you?" she asked, reaching over to touch her. "You don't look well-"

The sentence was never finished.

Her hand encountered nothing. No flesh, no body.

Yet she could still _see _her, gasping and choking and drooling.

"Who... who..." she stammered, swishing her hand through the body, through air, through nothing. The woman lay there still.

_I need help, I need help_, was all she could think.

"Luke! Hataj!" she shouted.

Something loud and awful sounded through her body like electricity, like a thousand nails dragged across slate, only the slate was buried beneath her flesh, deep in the marrow of her bone. The sounds tore at her eardrums as though the air pressure in the chamber had bottomed out and the woman kept screaming inside her head.

They weren't alone and she knew the voice. She knew what was so familiar to her on Yashuvhu was in the chamber with them both.

"Tol'hi'denata _krd'ss essa al'ryn ryallenush. Chal'hah krd'ss essa al'ryn ryallenush_…"

* * *

Han finished milling about the landing field outside the portmaster's office and snooping before midday. There wasn't much to unearth. Since they'd arrived, not a single, solitary, vessel had landed or taken off.

On the pretense of searching for a dropped credit pouch, he'd taken a quick stroll around the yard. There should have been fresh scorch marks in the grasses from the repulsors firing down, just as there were beneath the _Falcon_. Or grease puddles from leaking coolant fluids. Compressed vegetation. Any or all of the above. According to the portmaster (and thankfully, it was not the same clerk they'd dealt with two days ago), this was the only government sanctioned landing field on planet. Vessels were allowed to continue on to other intercontinental destinations, but they first had to check in through Eligel Proper, so 'no', if no one had been through here, no one new had come to Yashuvhu.

He wasn't lying. That there were any surviving patches of grasses to begin with proved his point. No one came here. The landing field was in near pristine condition.

It was truly amazing if one considered that the regular air traffic of even a planet such as Tatooine reached a thousand landings and take-offs a day. It was over a million on Coruscant. But one a week? Han thanked his lucky stars he hadn't been born out here and decided make his way back to town on foot. Thinking that their whole trip here was beginning to seem a complete waste of his time, and thinking that no planet was worth leaving without absorbing some culture, he ventured to one of the downtown tapcafs and seated himself by the window, ruminating cynically.

Fine. Leia had him. No Imperial factions were waiting to salute or assassinate Kadann's 'supposed' replacement for Palpatine. The local politburo was eager to show Luke off and host dinners in his honor, although not exactly tripping over itself to provide a helping hand to his information gathering.

Han ordered an ale, and then, because it was better than most of the semi-clear distilled sludge spaceports were passing off as ale these days, he ordered a second, forgetting all about Luke and his quest for old Jedi. Instead, he thought about Leia. In the space of a few scant hours, he was finding he missed her. Used as he was to being on his own, he wished she'd come with him instead of gone with Luke. Then they might be sitting here having a drink a together, as though they were two normal people, on a normal afternoon out. They rarely were able to do that. Before he'd left for the Sumitra Sector, before he'd left her, the publicity hounds and holo-takers had made going for lunch on Coruscant an ordeal. It made him crazy.

His commission would be up again soon as well. It meant that at best he had a month to make sure the he and Leia were straightened out and then he would be gone again. What if it took the New Republic a year to clean up Zsinj's mess? What if he was gone that long? Knowing that Leia had turned to someone else while he was away... it was going to make it hard for him to leave. Dispassionately, he pictured Rieekan and Ley'kel's faces, running his fingers lightly across the blaster hidden under the folds of his oversized great cloak and wondered how many subordination charges he'd wracked up.

As was his custom, he resorted to people watching when his mind became so thickly clotted with weighted seriousness he needed to give it a rest. The tapcaf had an ancient foam buffered fuse-ball table as well as a partitioned off area for photon darts. Leia was sharp at both, and as Han watched the few customers playing, he began imagining their shocked pasty faces if they were to play a woman and be beaten by her. Anything to ruffle feathers, especially since, he noted midway through his daytime fantasy, since there wasn't a woman in sight here. There was only one patron on his side of the bar, standing a few meters away, a man with snowy white hair cut just above his shoulders. The man flicked the edge of his caftan, back and forth, back and forth, over his feet – perhaps trying to keep it from touching the soiled floors, and spoke with the barkeep.

He dropped something small and silvery, and when he stooped to pick it up, Han got a good look at his boots.

Danger sense trickled up and down his spine. He knew the style by heart from days that seemed as though they belonged to a past lifetime, to someone else's life. They were well polished and cared for, with thick kerridum soles that by themselves cost more than five hundred credits on the black market.

_I knew it_ was all he could think.

Fortuitously, the stranger hadn't so much as blinked in his direction, so Han hunched over his drink, scrounged in his pocket for a more than enough credits to cover his bill, and then surreptitiously slipped out of his seat.

Outside, the tubule streets were bustling; the paved walkways cracked with white stains spilling like dry puddles of frost. The man was pulling the hatch of a grav-sled closed just as he made it outside. Swearing, Han pursued the vehicle for two blocks, dodging his way through pedestrians until his lungs were burning. He lost sight of it just as it turned north off the market area hub.

He caught his own transport back to the guesthouse and walked in on a crowd.

* * *

Leia reclined against the lounge's bolster, wrapped in a blanket looking very wan and pale. The front of her dress bloodstained. On the other side of the caf table, perched on the footstool sat a native woman, pretty in a fresh-faced way, but looking as though she too was in the process of overcoming a shock. Luke stood within a few paces of the doorway, clutching his elbows and speaking anxiously with a man flanked on either side by their designated guards. His first thought was that they'd been attacked. Though he'd anticipated being the one to walk in and say, 'guess what?' it was he saying instead, "What the hell happened?"

Luke came over to him swiftly. "Everyone's all right, Han."

"Nose bleed," Leia said quickly.

"More than that," Luke added.

Leia made a face. "It only ever happens when you're around." She gestured to the guards, to the man standing with them. "This really isn't necessary. There's nothing wrong with me. You said you felt it too."

"I did. But it didn't affect me that way."

"Luke, it had to be a vergence of some kind within the Force. The woman wanted my help. She was pleading for help, begging me."

_Felt what? Woman? Vergence_? "I'm not following any of this?"

Glancing at the party inside their common room, Luke flicked his chin toward the foyer doors and asked if they would mind waiting outside. When they were gone, he said, "Leia had a vision Han, at Hataj's home."

"Is was more than a vision," she countered, waving him toward her. "It was almost real." Leia stopped to shake her head. "No, she _was _real. I know she _was _real."

_Vision_? He went to her, and she wound her slight fingers serpentine-like through his. Trying not to wince, because she was squeezing with that superhuman Leia strength of hers that defied physics, he allowed himself to be dragged down to waist level. "Okay. I think you're gonna have to start at the beginning for me."

"We found her passed out on the floor of her uncle's office, disorientated, and unsure of where she was," Luke explained. "And as soon as we sat her up the nose bleed started. It stopped soon enough. She wanted to come back here before we called a medic."

"I think I smacked myself when I fell," Leia explained, gingerly touching the bridge of her nose.

Ascertaining that the mystery man with the guards was the medic, Han reached over and pressed an index finger on either side of her nose forward and back. There was no swelling and no sign that it was broken. But she'd fainted. That worried him. And the disorientation. "If you fainted-"

"The Force," she replied simply, as if that explained everything. "It was like tapping into a major power source and being overloaded, short-circuited. That's it. Remember..." She tipped her chin forward a centimeter and poked his side. "Remember what happened to you that time you decided to reboot the coolant feed generator without first cutting the power to the rear panel like I told you to?"

"Yes," he sighed. "You're fond enough of reminding me." That incident had been extremely unpleasant, indeed. Coming to under an odiferous siege of singed hair crossed with melted wiring and Leia saying, "I told you _that _was going to happen," had been even less pleasant.

"Well _there_. That's my best comparison for you. It was like that, only it was-"

"The Force. Okay. And you know what? You told me you weren't going to let me forget about it. I'm not going to forget about this either."

"Right," she challenged, arching her adorned eyebrow at him. "I didn't suggest that you should. Ask Luke if you don't believe me. He knows exactly what I'm talking about."

The Jedi sighed, as if beaten, tugging at the hem of his cloak. "There was a powerful vergence in the Force. In that room."

"I didn't think the Force could reach out and bite you back," Han muttered, remembering when he and Leia had destroyed the Korriban base on Baskarn. Leia had stood in the old cell shivering and terrified. She'd felt something, but it hadn't hurt her, hadn't knocked her unconscious and left her ashen faced, with her distress sequestered beneath an air of exaggerated normalcy. Han could tell and his fingers were killing him. "Don't tell me the laws of the Force and nature are different here."

"They're not," Luke interjected. "I don't know what happened."

Beyond their cloistered discussion, a low voice broke her silence. "I do. It's happened before."

All eyes turned toward the woman.

"I would have warned her if I thought she'd go that way. I'm so sorry I didn't think to tell you. It simply doesn't affect ordinary people, and it's been so long since we've had a visitor with the gift... But I should have warned you both, knowing who you both are."

"It's not your fault," Luke assured her. "You didn't know that would happen."

Leia grew even more ashen. Two of his knuckles cracked against her palm but she failed to notice. "She asphyxiated in her own bed."

"No one really knows if she asphyxiated or not." The woman stated it matter-of-factly, with enough emotional detachment that it was difficult to tell if there'd been a personal connection between her and the woman who died over twenty years ago. "Her husband awoke and found her the next morning. There were no marks, no signs of a struggle. They thought perhaps there was something wrong with her heart. There was a... _virus _plaguing us back then. In the olden days the healers would have known, would have been able to help her, but she died during the transition – between the times when our healers went into hiding and the lay medical persons began practicing."

Leia murmured softly. "She was pregnant, wasn't she?"

With a shudder plainly visible even from a distance, she replied, "Yes."

A chilling sense of déja-vu swept through him, harkening back to the conversation they'd had that night after escaping Baskarn, their first real 'talk'.

_It was choking me..._

I couldn't breathe...

Han continued asking all the logical questions, barely able to imagine what it must be like to see events, people from the past in the present. The Force had provided Luke with amplified screams, anguish, suffering, of their torture on Bespin. Distaste and dread filled the pit of his stomach. He wasn't sure he was missing out on anything and Leia wasn't exactly ecstatic about it. "So, does this mean she'll have them all the time now?" he wondered aloud to Luke, the nearest to an expert present.

"I don't know," Luke answered, skirting an anxious glance toward his twin. "I don't have them that often. I've never seen the past before, never... I never have, only the future or..." He glanced up at the yawning skylight and blinked rapidly as though a lash were caught beneath his lid, or a speck of dirt. "I've never been able to stop anything I've seen so far. I've never been able to help. They don't do me any good."

"Han, I'm going to wash up," Leia said, shifting suddenly and finally releasing the bone-crushing grip. Her expression clearly intoned, 'come with me.'

"In a minute," Han answered. He waited while her footsteps dimmed down the hall and until he heard their bedroom door close before turning to Luke. "You definitely have a _look _I hate to see you wear."

"I do?" he asked, unperturbed, calm as ever.

Han preferred people around him to react than to be so reaction-less. "Yes, I do. And there's a non-answer if I've ever heard one." Irritation sinking in, he kicked up one heel and rested it on the edge of the caf table. "Spill it out. You will eventually. I don't want to play guessing games. Even I'm not missing the funny coincidences."

Luke was shaking his head vehemently. "I think it was the surge, not anything else. It was powerful. I'm trying not to do the overprotective brother thing, but it's sort of hard. She told me a thousand times on the way here that her health is fine, that she's fine... but still..."

Han tamped back his urge to rush after her, trying not to feel overly alarmed about where this conversation was going. All he needed was for Luke to say, _I feel like she's hiding something from me_? His stubborn streak ran nearly as long and as wide as her own. Fortunately, it wasn't where he was going with this.

"But that the woman was carrying a child - that's bothering me. It's bothering me a lot. I mean, the night it happened, I almost didn't even believe her," the Jedi confessed quietly. "I wanted to believe her, but I couldn't feel it, not whatever it was."

Han adjusted his blaster. "But you felt this today?

"By the time I got there... it was as though the light was burning out. I didn't see anything."

He told them about sighting the Imperial.

"Boots," Luke kept saying afterwards, as though Han had just informed him he had x-ray vision and could see through duracrete. "Not that I don't believe you but... you're basing this on some guy's boots?"

"Boots?" Hataj echoed.

"You two weren't in the Academy," he reprimanded, waving away their disbelief. "They owned the patent on those soles and had them privately manufactured. You were issued a pair the day you enter and that pair would practically last you a lifetime." By now they were both staring at his own non-military style boots, and he felt compelled to add, "If you take care of them properly, which I obviously didn't. Anyway, he wasn't local and I don't know whether he'd been following me beforehand. For all I know he just happened in there accidentally."

"So you don't think he was tagging you?"

"I'm not sure he even saw me." Han mentally reviewed the events. "I'm pretty sure he didn't. By the time I went after him, he was gone. The street broke up in ten directions at least – it was the center of the damned weird downtown circle." He thought for a moment. "No one has landed at the dry dock recently, so unless they've been here waiting for us for a long time... That or he's an ex-Imp who thought this was a great place to retire."

The humor slipped over Hataj. "I've never heard of anyone coming to retire here," she assured them, very seriously. "Yours was the only ship I know of that's landed in the past month. Before that... we had a supply ship from Kuat a month ago."

"Yet the Tas claims you're completely self-sufficient," Luke commented.

"He has a penchant for foreign wines and finery. We also do import medical supplies and technology, foodstuffs."

"I see." Luke touched his fingertips together and brought them to his lower lip. "We've been on guard, we stay on guard. From the way you're describing it, it sounds like running across you wasn't in the plans."

"My thoughts too," Han added. "He was almost too relaxed. From what I've seen of their onworld security..." He paused and pointed. "No offence to our guest here, but I can't imagine it would be too difficult to land elsewhere and bypass it. I've landed illegally on a hundred worlds with better security. I could do it blindfolded here." Mental images of Leia fainting in the fresher and drowning in the massive sunken tub erupted. He lurched to his feet. "I'm going to go check on her."

Their bedchamber was empty so he shoved aside the screen that served as the fresher divider. Leia stood beside the oversized bathtub, idly watching it fill up, with her complimentary robe wrapped tight around her. The bloodstained clothing was piled by her feet. Her hair was a glossy mass of auburn against the light fawn cloth. With the water running, she didn't sense his presence until he touched her, and then she jumped, still on edge. "Oh, it's you."

Han released her arms and regarded the bathtub water creeping upward behind her. "Uh huh. It's me."

"Is the medic still here?"

"In the foyer."

"Can you please go back out there and do me a favor? Send him back wherever he came from."

"Luke won't go for that and we're both worried. And your tub's about to overflow."

"Oops." She spun back and fidgeted with the water controls. It took her a moment to deactivate them. When she finished she was smiling, sunnily, or trying to. "I feel fine, Han."

He settled a hand across the base of neck, digging his fingers into the muscles around her right shoulder blade with only the fabric of her robe between them. They were rock hard, bunched up and rigid. "You feel pretty tense."

"I _am _tense," she retorted defensively. "I see things. I hear people who aren't there. You of all people must think I'm crazy..."

"Me of all people? You don't think I believe you? Sweetheart, this sort of thing has happened before and I've always believed you?"

"Last week you said you didn't believe Luke really still saw Ben Kenobi."

Han shook his head. "Aw, come on. As much as I periodically take perverse pleasure in claiming to be a complete atheist when it comes to this stuff, we all know I'm not. I never doubted you on Bakura. I never doubted you when you told me about the night you went wandering through the touch-knots."

"But not like this. It wasn't like this on Bakura. It was the same voice I heard on Baskarn, the same words."

The Corellian froze. "Did you tell your brother that?"

"Not yet. I'm waiting to tell him alone, when Hataj is gone." Clenching her eyes shut, she brought her hands up to her ears. They opened wide, luminous pools of confused fear, the darker side of oblivion lying in wait. "I know hatred when I hear it. I know evil. I didn't need to understand what was said." She tucked her hair behind her ears, set her soap on the ledge and leaned her tremulous form against his for comfort. "Maybe coming here was a bad idea."

Han hadn't even told her about sighting an Imperial yet. "Then maybe we should leave," he prompted.

"No. We have to let Luke try. He's barely had a chance to begin. And with what happened to me... Coming here was the right thing to do. I know that now. It's all woven together Han – what happened to me down there, what happened to Luke." She slipped out of her robe, handed it to him, then climbed into the tub and sucked in her breath, steam rising around her like the rising mists of an Endor dawn. "I know this was the right choice," she repeated, settling herself on the bath's lower ledge, her hair a streaming fan on the surface of the water. "And Hataj is wrong. It wasn't a virus that killed her."

Not knowing what to believe anymore, Han set her robe on the counter, grabbed two towels and set them on the spiraling tiles beside the tub. Then he sat down with his legs outstretched, rolled up his sleeves, and reached down to massage her shoulders. "Try and relax," he said.

"I could see her as clearly as I can see you. I wanted to help her and I couldn't." Leia continued, sucking half of her lower lip between her teeth, as though she was trying to find a more cohesive language. "I keep imagining what it must have been like for her husband to wake up and find her dead beside him. And his unborn child."

"I know," Han replied slowly. The whole incident, the way she was talking, was beginning to rattle him. Massaging the slippery warm living flesh beneath his hands, he abruptly pitied the man, the husband, and the father-to-be who had awoken and discovered his wife a lifeless form in his bed. No, he hadn't seen it, but he could imagine and he didn't want to.

Squirming slightly away, but not far enough that he was no longer touching her, she turned so that was facing him and asked, "Are you going to go tell the medic to leave or not?"

"Leia-"

"_Han_." She took a deep breath, on the verge of bursting with indignation. "Let me put it this way. If anything _male _from Yashuvhu so much as tries to take my pulse, I'm going to scream. You, on the other hand, can run whatever tests you want with the sensors and equipment you have on your ship."

It occurred to him then that he wasn't inclined to trust anyone coming from the Tas' residence. If they had 'old friends here' distrust was a good thing, and she seemed to be suffering no ill affects from fainting or the nosebleed. Reluctantly, he said "Only if you take it easy for the rest of the day."

"I will." Launching herself and a small tidal wave against the tub's side, she stretched over onto his knee and rested her chin there, heedless of soaking him. "I promise."

* * *

Night came. Sleep came to her in fits and starts. Glimpses of the vision overwhelmed her repeatedly. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the woman's face, she saw the gruesome rictus destroying the delicate features and transforming her into something ugly and terrifying in the darkness. Han evaded her subtle hints to come to bed with her, not the least bit tired. He and her brother talked in the common room; she heard their voices but not make out what they were saying.

Leia left the fresher light on the way she would have when she was a child. Luke had not known what to say when she told him about the voice. Somehow, by his acknowledgement that he didn't understand, a superstitious vestige of security had crumbled.

When Han did finally come to bed, she was vaguely aware of his hands on her body, of his warmth, but slumbering too deeply to do more than roll away from the disturbance. And then everything was black, black and dark and cold and the father she shared with Luke was there and she was screaming...


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

* * *

Hataj didn't look surprised to find Luke standing on her doorstep again. This time he came alone, with out his sister, without an ordered invitation from the Tas Mos'ir. Today she wore brightly colored skirts and her hair was loose about her shoulders. Her tone was warm. "Jedi Skywalker, come in."

"Luke," he instructed. Being called Jedi, or Commander, General – those titles never felt as though they fit. Formality didn't suit him the way it did Leia. "You slipped off on me yesterday." It was accurate enough. He'd gone to check on Leia and when he'd returned to the common room there'd been no sign of her, and he'd spent the rest of the day suffering beneath the deluge of questions brimming in his hyperactive brain.

"I asked the guards to bring me home. It was late."

For an inexplicable reason, Luke challenged her further, cutting short her excuse. It wasn't like him, but inside he felt rather petulant about her vanishing act, and he felt, as though they were old friends, ribbing each other about their bad habits with no ill feeling. He crossed his arms sternly. "You might have said goodbye."

Tapping her fingertips together, she said, "I apologize for my mood yesterday. The Tas sending you here wasn't your fault. I was angry with him, not you and your sister. You were the messenger, the guest, so to speak. And…" She opened her palms wide. "Good enough for you, Luke?"

Luke grinned. "Is your uncle here?"

"He's in Karush."

"Karush?"

"It's a village about an hour from here by transport. He should be back soon though."

Faltering slightly, for he had in fact expected her uncle to be home and had hoped to question him, he gestured to the doorways. "Do you think he'd mind if I stepped into his office again? I just want to take a look or a feel."

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

Staring a fraction of a second longer than was polite, Luke followed. Her skirts swished with every step, swimming about her ankles and growing taut about her thighs. As one who had grown used to relying on the Force to feel people out for so many years, her lack of a presence, or blocked presence, resulted in something akin to a constant and intense fascination. At least, that's what the he told himself. Throughout yammansk yesterday, he'd been trying to read her, trying to get a feel for her hostility, a _reason_. And he'd been picking up nothing from the Force. It made perfect sense that his ordinary visual senses and instincts would be focused on her.

The office was the same as they had left it. Native masonry techniques left the curved walls smooth and polished. Beside the plain desk were stacks of datafiles. Nothing about the chamber was unordinary.

Luke approached the desk and stretched a mental hand into dark waters, trespassing without knowing what hidden dangers might react in return. The incident with Leia concerned him. It had been all he could do to not call for some type of medic immediately. After the miscarriage and whatever complications there'd been, he was unconvinced her fainting and her recent medical history weren't connected. Granted, he _had _felt the energy emanating from that room, the vibrant tremor of aimless power running through it, as though in search of a new conduit. A surge? Sure. It might blindside someone and knock him or her out. Who knew?

All was calm, unlike that pinnacle moment yesterday when the Force had roared with a coiled strength, so powerfully it had jolted him from two chambers away, channeled by…

_Leia_?

If she had channeled it, Luke knew it had not been by conscious choice. Perhaps the Force had gathered its strength all these years, sprung at her like a hrosma tiger and exhausted itself. There was nothing today, though in his mind he could so clearly see his sister lying prone.

"_What happened?"_

"Luke what happened?"

The rain of crimson had begun flowing freely, and her fingers had stretched out below her chin, mystified, trying to catch it. Her other hand had been braced against the cobbled stone floor.

"_Where am I? Where am I? Where is she? Where did she go_?"

"_She_?" He had asked his sister three times before she'd been able to respond. "_She_?"

"Anything?"

The voice jarred him, higher than he'd been expecting, with foreign intonations. Luke shook his head, forcing the image of Leia from his mind. "You said it had happened before, that there'd been others here with the gift? Who were Force-sensitive?"

"Not since I was a little girl." She used a clean sleeve to sweep away a new layer of dust from the desktop, perusing the room as though she too, were trying to imagine what had happened there all those years ago. "It happened to a guest of my great uncle. The vision. The woman."

His brain went instantly hyperactive again, as it had yesterday. He was facing a woman near his own age. If they had been here, those with the gift, and she could remember it, it was long after the purges had ended. It meant they might still be alive. "There've been others here that you remember? Do you know where they are now?"

"Why they're in hiding," she told him, making a quick gesture with her hands that was either religious or superstitious. Luke couldn't tell. "They never told anyone where they were going."

"But you remember them… and…" _The past had replayed itself before_. "What can you tell me about what my sister saw?"

"Not much more than I already have. The woman who died was a friend of the family. This was the guestroom. After she died no one used that room for over a decade. Not until my uncle converted it into his office."

They returned to the common room in silence. Luke was debating whether to ask if he might wait for her uncle when Hataj gathered up a long shawl and scarf from a cubbyhole just inside the front entrance. "I needed to run a few errands," she explained. "I was going to wait until my neighbor is up, but since you're here..."

The suggestion passed Luke over. They stood waiting, and then Hataj said, "I need a chaperone."

"Am I permitted?"

"You're confusing traditions as you know them with ours," she explained, twisting the pelt lined scarf about her throat. "I can be with anyone – simply not alone."

"I see." The news was something of a relief. Han and Leia had set off earlier, and they hadn't been sure it whether or not they were breaking customs or local law. Han had taken his Right I.D. just in case anyone asked, hoping no one would more than give it a cursory glance. "What would happen if you were alone?"

Frowning at him as though he were daft, Hataj said, "I would be unsafe."

_From what_? The reasoning struck him as rather unprofound, even more so once they started on their way. Sundries of passers-by gave them not a second glance. Yashuvhu was anything if not orderly and civilized, and he would not have described Hataj as helpless. Leia, for instance, was a prime example of a woman well trained in self-defense and offense.

The errands she'd wanted to do were all in the immediate area. Stopping here and there, Luke began to see the subtle undertones of the culture. The shopkeepers nodded to her almost imperceptibly before she spoke, and after seeing several do so, it began to seem less a cultural habit born of unequal gender roles, more a sign of obeisance toward her. In contrast, the Tas Mos'ir, with his booming '_you may speak_,' had been less than respectful by being so vocal with his permissiveness.

After their third shop, he tried again to delve into the seemingly inconsistent customs. "My sister finds the traditions difficult to understand."

The subtle prodding was less than successful. "She's not one of us," Hataj replied simply. "Of course it must be difficult for her. How is she feeling by the way?"

"She's well. Shaken up, understandably, but well." Leia had, in fact, appeared at breakfast bright-eyed and rosy cheeked, debating over the list of items to retrieve from the _Falcon _with Han.

"You two seem very close."

"I like to think we are," he said truthfully. "But we weren't raised together, so I'm still learning. Do you have a large family here?"

"Just my uncle."

A familiar finality was in her words. There was no need to ask about parents.

"Where are you and your sister from?"

"My sister was from Alderaan," he answered, letting the emphasis on _was_ drop slightly.

She shrugged. "I've never heard of it."

The crumpled laugh that almost escaped him was for wonder. Yashuvhu was so isolated it didn't matter. She might never have heard of Darth Vader. That the Empire had possessed the power to destroy worlds was a legend, a myth even. During the war Luke had waited out a few long nights with Wedge and the other Rogue Squadron pilots, in foreign hangers, forgotten backwater rendezvous points. Conversation in the outer rims, even mid rim, was often a decade behind history. Inevitably, people spoke of rumors. "_No, no… They did. I heard of it. Arcan? Arraban? No wait, maybe it was in the Serrot Sector. Do you remember? It might have been a moon_."

Luke struggled to overtake the awkward speechlessness descending upon him. If he began talking about Alderaan, he would have to go into what happened to it and he didn't want to. Not today. "I grew up nearer to your parts, on Tatooine."

"But I do know Tatooine." She began nodding to herself earnestly. "Oh, I know of Tatooine, yes! That's where our devout settlers went. They left about the same time our healers did."

By nature of guiding the conversation, Luke realized what it was about her that caught him. The vague familiarity about her finally clicked. She reminded him of the girls back home, the hardworking ones who wanted nothing more than to marry the most prosperous moisture farmer and raise a few children, who were sweet on the simplest futures, having not been raised to dream outside the box. Naïve in the ways of the galaxy, skilled with crops and meals, direct and well intentioned. They wound up like Beru; with sun wrinkles crinkling around their eyes, their skin rough and leathery, hardened, but still the same. She had that same air about her, the same untarnished determination.

Luke let the edge of his eyetooth pinch at the corner of his lip. "I never knew why they came to Tatooine. According to rumor it was for religious reasons."

Hataj shifted her purchases from one arm to the other. "You could say that. Many felt that we were straying from the old ways, that our misfortunes - what happened to our healers and Jedi - were our punishment for straying. And so they departed, seeking divine blessing on the planet famous for its twin suns." She grinned broadly. "That's the polite version of our history. The truth is they believed the Tas to be too secular."

"You mentioned a virus from that time?"

"It killed near a thousand in and around Eligel Proper."

Without thinking, Luke gave her a mental brushing, seeking clarification, and received none. A virus that caused serious heart problems and killed people while they were sleeping. No. Leia had been concise. She'd said, _choking, strangling, and wide awake_.

"Those were very dark days for my people. It's not often spoken about." Hataj pointed to a courtyard tucked between edifices and rounded city streets. "Come. Let me show you something."

A congregation of stone bodies welcomed them. Luke had seen them all over in the preceding days. They were ubiquitous, the women and children, in pairs, in triplicate. They wandered into the semi-circle of totemic monuments, with Hataj drawing his attention to this figure or that, telling them where they had lived, when they had died, whom they had left behind. She knew their life facts by rote, their stories. They were spirituous, the women clutching children's hands, children clutching skirts, their features all glistening in the cold, ice forming like teardrops in the crevices and crags. Though he scanned for them, it did not take long to realize that there were no men.

"No," she explained when he inquired. "It only affected younger women, mothers-to-be, infants and young children. That was what made it so cruel, so horrible for us."

Luke set his hand upon one, traced the contours of the child's face from cheek to chin. Han had complained the other day that the statues gave him the creeps, that every time he turned around there was another one, moony-eyed, staring at him. Now he understood. Without thinking, he heard himself say, "My sister miscarried a few weeks ago."

"I'm so sorry. That explains her reaction the other day at your guest house. The way she looked."

"In part." For the moment he allowed himself to remember the niece he'd been able to feel, picturing Leia with her new secretive smile, with the novel warmth about her that had been so beautiful. He wasn't sure why he was sharing, thinking next that perhaps he shouldn't be, that he had no right to tell her any of this. However, he also felt better saying it to someone. "She'll be all right. She seems to be doing all right."

The dark haired woman took a deep breath, speaking with emotion. "My mother died of the plague, the virus too."

It was Luke's turn to say he was sorry.

"I don't remember. But my full title in our language is, '_Hataj Yva 'chi gnyis spangs pa_.' Do you know what that means?"

"It's an older dialect, isn't it," Luke responded, shaking his head.

"It means, 'one who has escaped birth and death.' They say they arrived the minute after she died and cut me out and I breathed."

Luke struggled to suppress a shudder. "That's awful."

"I never think of it anymore. I'm used to it. People do regard me oddly because of it – or they did when I was growing up. I never trusted them, or they never trusted me. I could feel it, even when I was little and they thought I didn't notice." She turned her decorated cheek, almost curiously. "You know that feeling you get when people are watching you? And you look up to catch them, but they're always looking somewhere else. And eventually, you think, it's not possible that everybody is always looking somewhere else. Why wouldn't someone be looking at me? It's not in my imagination. I know it's because of how I was born."

"I can relate to that more than I can even begin to explain." It hadn't been how he was born, but who he was born to, and it hadn't been strictly others either. His immediate family had watched him too, reacted to him fearfully. He'd explained to Leia that long ago morning outside their tent when she'd been struggling with morning sickness, and his greatest concerns had been that her children not grow up feeling the same scarring sense of isolation.

Hataj reached over and squeezed his hand. "Yes. I thought so." Each cobalt eyebrow suddenly rose in turn, inquisitively. "What is it you wanted to meet with my uncle about? It's because of his work, isn't it – rather the work he used to do with the healers, keeping records?"

Luke nodded. "He's the only person on Yashuvhu who can able to help me."

"Perhaps he'll be back before us."

* * *

"I'm not picking up a damn thing," the unruly haired man muttered, wiping the lens of his macro-binoculars. He resumed his search through the eyepiece. "Absolutely nothing. _Oblivyn…"_

"Xerbet," The last Princess of Alderaan added.

"_Nilcha."_

"Zaxxixx..."

Han made a god-awful squeak, followed by a short burst of rapid squeaks so shrill she covered her ears.

"What in the world..."

"Akwin," he announced, beaming. "Their underwater dialect. And I'm going to call it."

Leia blew out a frustrated lung-full of air, too distracted to contemplate _where _or _why _Han would ever have learned the shrieking chatter of a species that split its time between the land and sea. This had been a long shot. To anyone who saw them, they were a couple of city tourists who'd rented a carriage for the day and were carousing around the city's edge, touring the festive landscape and tempting a massive allergy attack. If that was a common sight here. So far, they'd not seen another soul, unless they counted the dozen or so wild duuvhals sunning themselves in the roads. Stowed between them were heat sensors, radiotropic sensors and other portable state of the art reconnaissance equipment. Both of them had extensive experience with this sort of search. If there were any ships buried in the forests, even camouflaged to avoid sensor detection, anywhere within a kilometer of where they passed, they would have picked up an anomaly, but the tour of the city limits was fruitless. They'd covered North, East and South, and were steadily making their way West.

Their portable map-viewer lay activated on the dashboard. There were five villages ringing the outskirts of Eligel Proper. They'd taken a drive through and around all five in just under as many hours. Han reasoned they had to be near the city, but not near enough to be spotted by everyday folk.

Leia loathed the notion of waiting for the Imperials to find them first. When questioned, Han was adamant about the boots, as he had been all along. "_I'm dead sure of what I saw. How often am I wrong_?" he kept replying, and even Leia had to admit at last, "_not very_."

"I mean," Han continued, to no one in particular, since Leia had heard him so many times today she'd starting tuning him out, "They could be beyond any of the villages in the outskirts, underground. We don't have time to search the entire planet and if I petition for a visa to do reconnaissance work with the _Falcon _it's probably not going to go over so well."

The sensors beeped a response this time. Han abruptly killed the engines, letting the vessel idle to a slow stop. "There," he said.

Assuming he'd spied something off in the distance to accompany the beep, she tried to follow his line of sight, rising half off her seat. There was a ridge arising behind the forests to their left. Nothing flashing, nothing metal. No stormtroopers. "What do you see?"

Han toggled a few sensor switches until it beeped back at him again. "There's something interesting over there. Could be a local mining outpost again… but…" His finger traced the snaking line in the middle of the map's viewer. "A river would be a very strange place for a mining installation, wouldn't it?"

They sought a good cover for the carriage along the roadside treeline. There were quite a few pockets recessing deeper into the woods, and they selected one that provided adequate cover from passers by.

Leia felt anxious, though for the most part, her sense of foreboding rested in the unnerving experience yesterday, a growing malign sentiment that Yashuvhu and she bore a connection she couldn't comprehend. And given the chance, she wasn't sure she even wanted to know the origin. Truly, she wanted to get off planet as soon as possible. She wanted to go anywhere else. Jangling nerves and too much attention from the Tas and his family weren't helping. One state dinner remained in their honor, (or in _Luke's _honor, to be accurate. Leia was certain if she and Han dropped off the edge of Yashuvhu, no one but Luke would notice), but that wasn't for two days. After that, they would likely be leaving. They would return to Coruscant and hope for the best.

They bundled up in their clothing, tightened their collars, packing their gear into a satchel. The last of the carriage's heat leaked from the vents. Leia peered through the transparisteel, watched her breath fog the window over, drew on a pair of gloves and steeled herself for the cold. It was supposed to snow soon. According to one of their guards, it should have snowed weeks ago but they were in the middle of a drought. She hoped they were gone before it did, prayed that they were, and went to open her side hatch just as Han caught her arm above the wrist.

"Problem?" she asked.

"No, no. Just hang on. I thought we could talk for a minute. While we're alone."

_Talk_? Leia experienced a ping-ponging sensation in her chest, her heart and lungs seizing in unison. This was a new Han. She didn't like the element of surprise this new Han had on her, saying things he never would have before, wanting to talk when she didn't want to. Her instincts were instantly on edge. She'd had a bad night. They both knew that. Her nightmares tended to come in waves. "Talk about what?"

"This morning."

She squirmed uneasily. "What about this morning?"

"I heard you crying."

"Oh."

"And I could tell when you came out of the fresher."

It hadn't been a big deal, she'd thought, and she certainly hadn't thought he had heard her, for she'd been trying very hard to be quite. But he said that last part as though to say, see, _I have proof_, so there was no point in claiming otherwise. She'd awoken very early and discovered that the shot Tryll had given her before she departed Baskarn was one hundred percent effective. Her body's normal functions were emotionally loaded, had triggered or renewed the fading sense of loss. For a brief time, it had been a new loss all over again. She didn't know what she'd been hoping. She couldn't figure herself out, though the grief had somewhat passed.

Han wasn't going to understand any of this on his own. Either they had a painfully complicated discussion, right _now_, right _here _in the middle of the forests, or they had a simple one. Leia opted for simple mainly because it seemed ludicrous to start a heart to heart in the midst of their search for a clandestine Imperial faction. She said, "It was nothing. I got my period. I felt like crying, so I did. That's all there was to it."

"Hormones," he mumbled under his breath, sounding as though he'd solved the mystery all by himself, had her all figured out.

_Yeah that's right Solo_, she thought bitterly. _I'm a cliché, the quintessential human female_. She knew he didn't know better but she wished he would _think_.

He still hadn't let go of her arm. He gave it a squeeze. Leia couldn't help but think he was holding it so that she couldn't run from him. "Other than that you're all right?"

"Of course, I'm all right. Why wouldn't I be all right?"

"Got me. Well, let's go have our look-see close up," Han declared, releasing her and clearing the edge of the carriage in one hop. Then he held up his hands and easily swung her down through his side.

The forests buffeting the roads were a coniferous variety. The upswept whorls of spiny bracts were creamy white with rusty patches, like cumulous clouds with a blistering sun setting behind them. Oozing resin blisters and oblong sapsucker holes spotted the long arching trunks and the red-purple seeds crunched pleasantly beneath her boots. It was a far cry from the jungles of Baskarn.

It was also alien enough to make her nervous.

Apprehension wasn't the only emotion nagging at her. Beneath the apprehension, she felt vaguely angry too. She examined the source as they marched. _Because you wanted him to pry and he didn't? Well, you could tell him_. "Han," she thought out loud.

"Huh?" he mumbled, as he always did when he was half paying attention.

Purposely vague in order to marshal up courage, as she was only deciding as she spoke to reveal any of this to him, she slowed her steps and said, "You never asked me what happened that day."

Predictably, his hazel eyes bore their share of mystification. "Which day are we talking about?"

"On Elrood," she said simply.

That stopped him dead in his tracks. His eyes sharpened insightfully, sizing her up. "You said you made a mistake, right?"

She adopted his ploy. If Han Solo's instincts were always on the credit, than her own record for staying cool and collected was impeccable. "And when, Han Solo, have you ever known me to make a mistake like that?"

"Never. _Is _there more? Is there some redeeming part to it all you forgot to tell me about?"

"Forget it."

"No. Let's not. You brought it up."

She swallowed hard. "Are you sure you want me to tell you?"

"Sweetheart, I'm asking aren't I?"

With that Leia took a deep breath and set the entire story free. Of the mother and her child. Of how it had felt to her. Of how it had caught her off guard. That she hadn't known she would react that way.

Han scuffed one boot toe through in the seeds from start to finish. He wore his Sabaac face. "I wish you'd told me all this when it happened," he said when she was done.

"Do you?" There were so many things she might have told him – more he might have asked. In an unguarded moment, Han might have asked her why she'd decided to go through with the pregnancy when there were other options available; when it meant sacrificing her career, when it meant unavailing the New Republic of the Organa dream, of her father's dream. After these past weeks, she had given up worrying that he would, and she quashed the foolish impulse to ask him why he hadn't. "Would it have changed anything if I did?"

"No. Maybe. I would have been less hard on you."

Leia was tempted to quip, "_When, _standing upright or beneath the engineering station?" So much had been thrown to the wind in recent weeks, his lack of restraint with words and opinions spilling over into the parts of their relationship that were more physical. In his own right, he had returned to their pairing a changed man. Recalling that side of Han, the extent of his passion that afternoon, sent warm shivers up and down her legs. But she knew he only meant he might have believed her less inept, less of a worry. "I've never done anything like that – forgotten where I was. Not when Alderaan was destroyed, not when Vader had you put in carbon freeze. I've never blocked out what was going on around me. Not like that. I stayed in control."

He reached down and traced the curve along her cheekbone, the edge of the tattoo she'd grown accustomed to seeing in the mirror. "It's not worth beating yourself up over. It happens to everyone."

"I almost got you killed. You had a right be angry."

Demonstrating his usual sublime indifference to danger, Han was grinning. "And that's what? The first time you've done that? Cause I can count at least a dozen others if I think back hard enough. And you're not the first person to ever put me in a situation like that?"

The princess smiled. "No, actually. I'm pretty sure I'm not."

"_See_."

"_See_," she repeated, matching the triumphant tone. Leia dropped her gaze, poked out her toe and butted it up against his larger boot. She sniffed against the cold and kept talking. "On Alderaan, we didn't believe in gods or any one gods, but we did believe in a greater energy guiding us, surrounding us. We believed that if we called to it, it would answer, guide us. Not so different from the Force, but not the same. I've spent many, _many _hours contemplating why they are so similar yet separate." She took another deep breath. "We had rituals too, prayers for the loss if a child that hadn't been born. I can't remember what they would have done. I wasn't old enough to take part."

They'd been practiced more for their comfort value, more to allow for public grieving than for religious purposes. Her memories were vague and distorted by youthful impressions. Still, for the first time in her young life she could almost understand the need for them. When she tipped her face back Han had a cynical brow raised, and his smile was gone.

"But you were old enough to run plans for the Rebellion and serve in the Senate?"

She shifted her narrow shoulders up and down. "I would never have been encouraged to marry so young, bear children. They would have been the heirs apparent to the throne, though we had no governing power save the power we earned under the Republic. Decisions such as those weren't contemplated lightly in my household."

"Yes," Han nodded. "I can see why. Gods forbid the family political dynasty collapse due to bad genes."

"Hey." Leia elbowed him fast, a fierce jab above his hip.

"Ooh! What? Watch the wisecracks?" Han feigned hurt and clutched at his side. "They have their rituals on Corellia too, I think. There's a tome even. '_A Hundred Dreams about Hundred Heavens_' or something. Children get their own, born and unborn." Without breaking eye contact, he rubbed thoughtfully at his cheek. "So what are we really talking about here?"

Leia shifted her shoulders again. "I'm not sure. I think the Force is the nearest thing to an otherworldly power I believe in. We're all a part of it. We all belong. But it doesn't... It doesn't-"

"Help to know that," he finished. "I know."

"Maybe." Suddenly Han had moved nearer. As though he meant to embrace her or put an arm about her, and he was regarding her tenderly and looked like he cared. "Don't," she replied icily, locking her elbows and pushing him back. He probably didn't know what else to do, probably meant well, but any compassion and pity would be her undoing. "Let's just go run the check, okay."

With a puzzled expression, Han readied his equipment, dropping the discussion as casually as she had initiated it. "Sure. If that's what you want."

They began the two hundred or so meter climb to the top of the ridge through the forest. Though it wasn't far, the slashy uneven terrain was enough to leave her short of breath. It had been a while since she'd exercised or exerted herself – certainly not so much these past weeks. She'd run the gauntlet in that respect on Baskarn, but the shape she'd arrived at the base in was less than ideal, or even what one might consider healthy.

As soon as the reached the top Han dropped to his knees and crawled the last few meters on his belly. Winded, Leia followed suit.

"Ahh… ah…" Han muttered. "Well, well, well. I'd say we've found something very interesting."

_Interesting indeed_.

Far below, resting beside a river so massive it appeared to be on the verge of swallowing the horizon rested a _Vibre-class _Assault Cruiser.

Before the Battle of Endor, they'd been the toast of the Imperial Fleets. They were triangular and plated with stealth coated matte black armor. At 100 meters in length, with retractable wings, they were easily docked within the massive Star Destroyers. While not truly attack vessels, they were outfitted with ion cannons, tractor beams and cutting lasers, not to mention that they were very well shielded. Additionally, the unusual finish made them slightly impervious to sensory detection – at least, from a great distance, they were capable of distorting data and making themselves appear as the random magnetic energy fields which occasionally clumped together in space, drifting aimlessly.

One thing was for certain. The Assault Cruiser had certainly _not _drifted aimlessly to Yashuvhu and landed just beyond the capital city limits.

"They can't hold more than eighty troops with crew," Han mumbled.

"Is that supposed to be a good thing?" she asked, worriedly. "Because that's actually eighty more than I want the three of us to be up against."

Han shook his head and continued studying his sensor pack. "If she came in fully manned. I'm getting inconclusive readings for on board – unless the entire crew has embedded itself with the city limits. Or else that hull is blocking me." Passing her the sensor-pack, Han unsnapped his macrobinoculars. "Wait a second. We have two standing sentry. Here. Take a look."

Leia let out her breath out in one long sigh of relief. The Royal Imperial Guards wore crimson robes and body armor that resembled that of the Mandalorian Death Watch syndicate and the Thyrsus Sun Guards. The guards outside the ship were dressed in standard military greys. "They might be scanning too."

"Doubt it. We'll wait a few and see if they're headed in this direction."

Spirits sapped by their discovery and at the same time relieved, Leia rested her chin on her arms. They might not know with whom they were dealing, but at least they knew with whom they were not dealing. The Royal Imperial Guard had been her biggest fear all along.

_The Royal Imperial Guard has contracts out on both of you, dead or alive, so high they'll bankrupt themselves trying to pay it_.

That's what Harkness and Raventhorn had told them and they were not to be taken lightly. When she returned to Coruscant, she was going to have review her security – and worry about who might have slipped genetic samples to the Guard or to begin with.

"I wonder how it's going with the girl," Han asked idly.

_The girl_? Leia's brain scrambled. "Hataj?"

"Yeah."

The _yeah _said it all. As did the arching eyebrow and accompanying smirk. Sometimes Leia didn't know where his brain got its delusions. "Oh, seriously. You're not thinking…"

"They were looking very friendly when I went back out there yesterday. I interrupted them. You didn't see it. He was giving her the _look_."

"The _look_?"

"The _look_. You know, the kind you used to get."

Leia pressed her lips together. "I know we had this talk once about-"

"Things I should never-ever bring up. Yes. Still, for the sake of comparison, Gaerial, Shira Brie, Simsarri, _you_."

She gave her head a vehement shake. "You imagined it. You dreamed it up. She barely spoke to us yesterday. She had no interest in speaking with either of us. She has an axe to grind with Tas we know nothing about."

"It must have all changed when you weren't paying attention."

"I was with them all afternoon and I have no idea what you're talking about. Besides, Luke is nice to everyone. He can't help it."

"I've seen him help it," Han countered. "He can help it when he wants to just fine."

_Simsarri_? Leia struggled to put a face to that name and failed. "Wait? Who was Simsarri?"

"You're absolutely right," Han declared evasively. "My overly vivid imagination has gotten the better of me yet again. I don't know what I'm talking about."

Opting to save her interrogation for another day, Leia nodded and resumed surveying. The pair had yet to move. "All right if they're scanning they'd have noticed us by now. Should we go down and take a closer look?"

"No," Han said, reaching into his bag and withdrawing a fist-sized device. He tucked it inside his jacket "Not we. I'll go down and take a look. You cover me from here. You'll have a better vantage point."

"Your faith in my targeting abilities astounds me," she commented sarcastically, drawing her blaster from her tie-down holster and flipping off the safety. Scuffling her body down a little deeper into the seeds, Leia double-checked the sight. The two men were chatting, arms tight across their chests in the cold. Any shots would be long ones, and she couldn't guarantee hitting a moving target from so great a distance.

Han reached over and patted her rear end, brushed his lips across her cheek. "I have absolute faith in you. So long as you hit something and distract them."

For a moment, she pressed her cold nose against the warmth of his neck. "Don't do anything brave or stupid."

"I would never. I'm just going to take a look. No problem. Trust me."

"Oh bother," she sighed. "I know I've heard that line before, _Slick_."

"I thought I said you weren't allowed to call me that," Han grumbled.

Leia drew herself back and winked. "You weren't allowed to bring up old history either." 

* * *

Luke felt horrible.

Visions of his Uncle Owen lecturing him, making him feel small and worthless in the bowels of the garage compound were freshly awakened. Hataj had the same look about her now that he'd felt back then, as though in his uncle's eyes his trivial sufferings had been in vain, as though his feelings had been worthless, his opinions without merit.

Beside Hataj stood her Uncle Harmakh, hissing so rapidly in their native tongue that Luke couldn't follow or catch more than an occasional word. Though he had the hands of a middle-aged man, the frame and the leanness, he looked decades older. His eyes were heavy and deep-set, shadowed by a thick brow. It made his expression hard to read, made him look perpetually incensed or chronically suspicious, though at this very moment there was no mistaking that he was incensed. He was the type of man that children probably ran from. Loss and tragedy, Luke ascertained, not years.

Again, Luke attempted to intervene, with enough sense to bide his words carefully. "I assure you I'm only here to ask a few questions. Then I'll go."

The aged Yashuvhite cast his attention his way, his features grave. "And what did the Tas Mos'ir ask for in exchange for my information?"

"Ask for?" Luke held out his hands. "He asked me to meet her. Nothing more."

Hataj stamped her foot. "Uncle don't! Stop this! He's not involved."

"He is involved!"

_What am I involved in_? Luke wondered. "The Tas asked what I thought of her?" he said, thinking furiously. Why the Tas Mos'ir was so intent on getting his opinion of a local girl was still unknown to him. The ruler had been deceptive to an extent throughout their meeting, but it had not overly concerned him these past few days. Now it seemed that it should have. What had he missed?

"Have you not stopped to contemplate what he meant by that?"

"I thought…" Luke began. "I thought…"

_Wife_?

No sooner had the word come to him than an intense despair tore at his soul. He felt as though he'd just stepped in quicksand and it was sucking him in inch by inch, slowly suffocating him. As had happened with the Tas Mos'ir that first night, his repeated attempts to feel for Hataj rendered him hypersensitive to the projected emotions of others. And her uncle emitted a grief so profound, Luke was nearly shamefaced inside at sensing so much from another man. New understanding dawned.

_Wife_. Of course, it almost made sense.

_When had it been taken from her_?

"Do you know?" Harmakh asked, his voice remote. "Do you?"

"I won't tell the Tas what it is he suspects," Luke promised in a low voice.

"You gave the Tas Mos'ir your word," Harmakh, replied, shaking his head slowly and thrusting a closed fist into mid-air. "Why should I believe you if you give me yours?"

"Had the Tas revealed his true intentions I would have refused him."

Harmakh lowered his fist, drawing in his elbow to his side, and for a second Luke thought he meant to move across the room and strike him. Instead he widened his palm and let the hand hang uselessly at his tide. "Leave us," he commanded his niece.

Luke watched her go, unable to speak at first. Then he said, "It's not possible. It isn't. There's no way." The innermost recesses of his heart did not believe it. Jedi, taking from potential Jedi gifts with which they had been born, going against nature, against the will of the Force. "How did you do it?"

"I didn't do it."

"Then who-"

"Her father. There was a way, a long time ago. It was little used and regarded as sacrilege. It saved her life." Her uncle bowed his chin stiffly. "I cannot protect her from the Tas and his suspicions."

"He wants another wife," Luke mumbled. "But it can't be undone. It can't be undone and it's useless to her."

Harmakh looked up sharply and moved beside him. He placed a palm against Luke's shoulder, over the same area Sarin had healed. "It's not her he wants. It's her offspring. At the next round of royal succession discussions, he can claim his blood runs with the ancient settlers, with the Force. He'll marry her in a heartbeat if he believes his heirs will be the new generation of healers, of prophets... of your kind. He'll take her – if he thinks for one second that she might bear them to his throne. And I would sooner be dead and buried than sentence my niece to be another wife of his."

The room felt as though it had grown colder since their return.

Harmakh stared. "Perhaps I should go back as far as I can." 

* * *

Han slid footfirst down the leeway slope of the ridge. At the bottom he rolled into the brush, taking care to drag his long legs up tight to his chest so that he wouldn't be visible if anyone happened to look in his direction. Then he watched and waited. Being stupidly brave wasn't on his private agenda but he wanted get on board the ship and check it out. And since he hadn't had the foresight to borrow Luke's lightsaber, carving through the hull (which would have been worth the pleasure of imagining their faces when they found the gaping hull breach) was not going to be an option.

However, if the men were standing guard, then they might have left a hatch open and that's what he was counting on. If they hadn't, he was going to have to try an old-fashioned ship break in.

Han half-scurried, half crawled through the bushes beneath the belly of the ship, hiding behind the ship's feet, which were meter square rests spaced evenly in pairs from her bow to her stern. The wind was blowing in his direction and he could catch snippets of voices, of conversation, but not whole words. He couldn't see the two men but he _could _see the entry ramp, and that it was down.

Moments later, Han discovered that while the ramp was down, the inner portal divider was sealed tight. Grabbing the passive field generator he'd stashed inside his coat, Han clipped it beside the portal's security system and activated it. Then he lifted the thin panel off the security lock and studied the wires inside. He'd had ample training on bypassing this type of system, lifetimes of it. The Empire never upgraded such menial systems. People just didn't usually march up to docked Imperial ships and try to break in (although Han had, twice). A second later the portal whirred open for him.

He stepped inside the ship, holding his breath, listening for the guards outside. After a moment's debate, he left the portal open. If he needed to run, he wanted to be able to run, and the pair might assume they'd left it open besides. At least, he hoped that's what they would assume. The ship was quiet, but did not feel abandoned or empty. Han trespassed cautiously. Striding quietly down the first corridor, he passed the galley and the head bunkrooms. Someone was snoring behind one of the privacy screens. An empty plate sat on the table in the common room.

There were voices up ahead. Not wanting to press his luck, Han ducked into the fresher doorway and listened intently. The command center on this model of ship was typically stationed just behind the cockpit, which was where he assumed the voices were coming from. Counting the snorer and the men outside, the tally so far was seven. Moreover, Han had a good feeling the pale haired man he'd spotted in town was not on board. He listened to the speakers chat about who was going to work on the full-spectrum transceiver, thinking he wasn't going to learn anything helpful after all, when finally, the discussion became interesting.

"How many more days?"

"It's up to him."

"I say we just make our move."

"He wants to wait. We can't move too quickly with Skywalker. Especially not with the other two in the picture."

_The other two_. Han edged a little closer, cautiously eyeing his own shadow, which was straining a little too far ahead of him for his liking.

"I thought he said he doesn't care about the other two."

"There are other options."

Something about the man's words made Han's stomach go worm-like and uneasy. He'd never prided himself on being on the Empire's most wanted list, nor did he relish that type of caring, but he was used to it. "There are other options" sounded like, "it doesn't matter if they're dead or alive," or "he'll turn them over to the highest bidder and hang on to Skywalker."

A series of metallic clinks came from the entrance ramp down the hall. Feeling that he'd learned enough, Han took a step back, scanning to his left and right, seeking another means off board. The cuff of his coat brushed against a fire retardant foam dispenser, which clanked noisily against the bulkhead wall.

"Marrix? Is that you?" Someone from the command center shouted. "You're late for your shift."

Swearing mentally, Han reached for his blaster, wondering how long he would go undiscovered if he locked himself in the fresher cubicle. He swiftly decided if he did that he might as well put his hands up and ask for their most spacious cell.

From the other end of the corridor, someone was asking who'd left the hatch open.

As if on cue, there was burst of fire outside that reverberated along the hull, and then a series of shouts both from both ends of the hall. There was little time to wait. Han fired twice toward the command center, wanting nothing more than to make sure no one fired at his back. Desperate to get off the ship, Han charged back down the corridor like a madman. He encountered the first man boarding shoulder first and threw all of his body weight into the collision. The impact knocked the Imperial off his feet and directly into the man behind him. The two tumbled head over heels down the gradient.

Recovering his balance by catching his hands on the stanchion before inertia vaulted him onto the body pile, Han took two steps down and leapt over the roiling pair. Overestimating his ability to land gracefully, or even on two limbs, Han came down hard onto all fours. Without looking behind him, he scrambled to his feet and began running, ignoring the shouts. A new volley of blasts screeched, and he prayed they were Leia covering him. Searching for the nearest escape route, he ran straight to the bank where from the waters were running as dark and deadly as the Corellian rivers to hell of legend. There was a steep drop-off along the river's edge and no gradual descent to deeper waters. Han tried to make his mind a blank and jumped.

Then _splat_.

The impact winded him immediately. Then the cold kicked in. Above the neck, he felt as though he'd taken a sledgehammer to the temple. Most of his body felt as though it had been dropped into carbon freeze, cold and burning at the same time - or so that tiny sliver of nascent memory screamed to him, from the second when the smoke and the darkness had taken Leia's face. Either that or every inch of his bare skin felt like it had been doused with liquid nitrogen, but he'd never been unfortunate enough to experience that firsthand.

Han tried to hold his breath and kicked with every ounce of strength in his body until he broke the surface, shrugging off his jacket so that it wouldn't drown him. The current carried him along quickly than he struggled to make his way toward shoal water, thrashing his legs clumsily to keep his head above water. After a few moments, his feet were squishing along a semi-solid bottom. Soon after he was crawling onto the shore.

Whatever distance he'd been carried, he was no longer within eyeshot of the bend around which the ship was hidden. Praying Leia had seen his dive, he forced himself to his feet, feeling heavy as an overweight bantha and hot all over. Knowing if he didn't get moving immediately that hypothermia would set in, Han dragged himself through the forest hoping the road ran parallel to the river for the duration. That last thing he needed now was to be out disorientated and lost while soaking wet in sub-zero temperatures. Much to his relief, the road materialized minutes later, and the carriage was speeding toward him. It promptly screeched to a halt beside him.

"Nothing brave, nothing stupid," Leia began, shaking her head, looking amused and relieved and worried at the same time. "_Oh _you must be so cold. Did the sea creatures here understand Akwin?"

"Funny Sweetheart." Han fell inside, tried to tear his shirts over his head, and discovered his fingers weren't working. Or they obeyed, but only about ten seconds after his brain sent the command to them, and by then, he wound up pawing at his holster instead.

Leia leaned over and twisted her hands in the dripping fabric at his waist. "Get your arms up."

Together they wrestled him free of the upper clothing. They tossed the sodden shirts onto the back seat with their equipment, where they landed with a loud wet thwack. Leia quickly switched the heat to full blast, and removed the coat she'd borrowed from him. Shivering, he took the cumbrous garment into his numb hands but did not put it on. When he looked down, he saw that his chest and stomach were covered in an impressive display of angry goose bumps. "Did anybody see you?" he asked.

She shook her head. "I don't think so. I fired wild until you went for your swim and hightailed out of there."

"Good." Han felt safe enough for the time being. They hadn't had any visible means of following them. He noticed a few new scratches on her face and hands, and reasoned 'hightailing it out of there' had been a breakneck crash through the brush. He rubbed his hands together, trying to restore sensation, planning to try and get his boots off as soon as he'd recovered enough dexterity.

"What did you find out?"

Han gave a contemptuous snort. "We've got Imperials in the vicinity and the Tas Mos'ir is fully aware of whatever is going on. And they want your brother."

"_Stang_."

"_Frack_." Han muttered, shaking violently and amused to discover his sense of humor was not currently in the claws of Yashuvhi crustaceans. "_Gfersh_. I know I can swear in more languages than you."

"Well naturally," Leia replied. "Anyone who worked for a Hutt for as long as you did should have quite the vocabulary."


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

* * *

Leia stared at the furrows of her palm in disbelief.

They were onboard the _Falcon_, crammed into the booth and on the holo-table were the two-dimensional flimsiplasts she had printed off on Baskarn, strewn edge to edge. Luke hadn't thought it safe to have this conversation anywhere else. Outside the winds were howling with the onset of yet another seedstorm. The forward viewports were already darkened over with the purple seeds. They'd have to make a mad dash for the portmaster's office again and call for ground transport from there. It was a good thing no one expected them for any banquets or celebrations.

Wet-headed, though finally in dry clothes, Han slumped against the portside wall that divided the common area from the rest of his ship, arbitrarily glaring down the tubule byway toward the cockpit. He was grumpy because he needed to vacuum out the vents. He was grumpy because his blaster was malfunctioning from water damage. He was grumpy because he'd lost his favorite coat in the river. Lastly, he was grumpy because he'd been right after all. Everyone in the universe and their long lost cousin apparently knew they were here on Yashuvhu.

Harmakh's story had taken some time for her brother to recount and they were all equally stunned.

Leia remembered the stories of the purges vividly from her growing up years. Beneath the less than commensurate goals of guiding Alderaan's interests within the Imperial Senate and fighting the ideological failures of that very same body politic, Bail Organa had arbitrarily selected that which he thought was important from the forever mutating history. Leia had studied the Clone Wars, the dissolution of the Republic and the Jedi with rapt fascination. She had heard old stories from her father about Obi-Wan Kenobi long before he'd sent her on a personal mission to bring him out of hiding. Bail had also given her several illegal holo-novels on the Jedi written by their admirers, though they'd taught her little of value. The authors had limited insight into the veritable day to day lives of those that lived and learned at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and sought to deify the order posthumously.

Her father had also made sure she studied their downfall. There were many lists of facts, dates, times. Palpatine's version of the facts. His archivist's version of the facts. _So-and-so died dishonorably by his own weapon before he could be arrested_. And Bail had told her, looking sadly down at her teen-aged face, _none of this is true, and don't believe what you hear without learning the truth for yourself first_. Perhaps it was more evidence that he'd known whose daughter she truly was. Or perhaps he'd simply passed the information out of fondness to the memories of old friends and old ways.

The purges were not unknown in the Outer and Mid Rims but they were not well documented. How Palpatine had managed to so effectively rid the galaxy of those individuals with whom the Force ran strong was unknown to even the highest levels of Imperial Intelligence. Whatever records _must _have existed had been wiped out long ago.

Thus, Harmakh's account was capaciously strange and simple.

The cloister of those descended from the stranded ship all those years ago regarded themselves as separate from their brethren on Coruscant. They were not snobbish, but they did consider the Jedi of the Core worlds to be somewhat regressive. They felt that too much emphasis was placed on the Jedi as the paragon of the 'warrior,' that not enough effort was dedicated to reflection and meditation. They were pacifists who lived monastic lives in the outskirts of the cities, who were available to all who needed assistance and frequented the civilized parts daily to offer their services. On Yashuvhu, the terms Healer and Jedi were synonymous with one another.

However, they were not entirely detached from Coruscant. They founded and contributed to the Medical Corps, which was a specialized branch of the Jedi Knights. The Medical Corps was an active interplanetary mission that took in padawan learners for a term, seeking to enhance their dedication to humanity and their compassion for all life forms. Offworld students were rarely lured back to Yashuvhu to study with their Healers, but it was not unheard of. More often local padawans opted to venture to the Core in search of excitement and in search of experience. They seldom returned. They all agreed that Sarin had likely been one of these.

Unlike the Temple, the Yashuvhi Healers actively reproduced offspring though they seldom married. They took _dardeins_. They were the women Sarin had spoken of, the women who offered themselves to the temples. The majority were Force-sensitive, the daughters of previous unions between dardeins and healers who had been sent to their mother's families. That was how it worked. The Jedi took in the sons of _all_, and the daughters returned to their birth relatives. The dardeins were well paid. They were honored and permitted to retain their independence. It was a choice of which one could be proud.

(Leia mentioned that Sarin had told her about the women, and her brother had asked why she had not told him. She lied and said she forgot. She did not say, "Because I felt as though you were looking at me the same way." She did not say, "You turned around and look what's happened since then.")

After the Battle of Geonosis, when it had become apparent that the pangalactic scene was in the midst of major upheaval and war with the Republic was certain, several dozen healers had ventured to the Core to offer support and assistance.

News eventually reached them that the Jedi were falling, fleeing, and dying. The locals had been concerned, but not overly. They had assumed that what occurred in the Core mattered not at all. The purges (as they would come to be known in later times) had gone on and Yashuvhu had remained isolated and oblivious. The Emperor had come to court them and they had politely received him and then sent him on his way. The Peace Keeping envoy had paid them a visit shortly after, offering sanctuary and warnings to the Jedi. It had departed with no passengers.

Then, the Jedi of Yashuvhu and their padawans vanished peacefully in a single night. There was no cry to battle, no day raid, no attack. There was never a body recovered. One day the circular halls of their scattered temples had been teaming with voices and laughter and the Force, and the next the very same halls were empty, ringing hollow with the vertigo of abandonment. No one knew what happened to them. There were rumors that they went into hiding. People commonly said they were in hiding, but Harmakh did not believe that to be the truth.

Soon afterwards, the plague, the strange sickness, had blackened the nights and days of the entire planet.

"It's an inimitably human characteristic," Leia murmured, twisting a stray lock of hair around one finger. "If you study other cultures - many don't gloss over the events the way we do. Humans are considered too sensitive, too reluctant to face their own pasts. Some cultures say we don't have the stomach for it."

"It was evil," Luke amended. "The Dark side at its worst. Or the worst of human nature."

She thought back to all she had learned growing up. "Although we know how efficient and complete the purges were, we never talk about how they accomplished it. I don't think history had even accurately recorded what happened to the children, the elders. There are a few tales of heroic bravery, the Jedi fighting to the very death to protect others. The slaughter of innocents, of the defenseless…"

"It's all the Empire's twisted propaganda," Han added.

"Exactly," Luke replied. "But this extends so far beyond the Jedi. What happened here... The entire population is human stock with Jedi ancestry. They weren't taking any chances that they survived, that a drop of blood was passed on. It was a quiet slaughter while they slept, in their beds, with their loved ones nearby, with husbands lying next to wives and children, children that had yet to be born."

An uneasy postmeridian silence descended upon them like a starless sundown. Leia refused to shift her gaze to the left or right, tip her chin enough to catch her brother's face in her peripheral vision. The men regarded her uncertainly, as though a sign flickered over her head highlighting her recent sorrow and connected supernatural experiences. Han was dreadfully obvious. Luke was trying to read her - she could feel his eyes on her. "I'm not going to fall apart," she maintained, addressing Han. "You can both stop looking at me like that."

"Leia no one's-" Luke began saying, but Han's voice was louder. "So how many people died altogether? Did Harmakh give you a final tally?" The stubborn curled out edge of a chart caught his attention. He reached over and punched it flat. "You said most of them were women right?"

"In the neighborhood of nine-hundred, over a three month span. All of the adults were women. A quarter were children under two, girls and boys."

"Do they know it wasn't a plague," Leia asked.

"Harmakh knows it was _no _plague," Luke replied. "We know it was no plague. But they had no proof, nothing other than their intellect and suspicion, and they had little option other than to keep their silence. The city populations were in panic, under quarantine, and yet the deaths continued – entire neighborhoods were afflicted over the span of several nights. They had no way of knowing where it would spring up again." Luke stroked the ruddy beard he'd not yet trimmed. "It's had a long reaching impact on the society here. I have a feeling – if I take into account the settlers who came to Tatooine - that they were moving toward a more progressive society when all of this happened."

Leia nodded to herself. As with so many other deeply spiritual cultures, unexplained tragedy combined with religion resulted in extremism, a strict resurgence of religious tradition. "A few must have known there was a connection between the women who died and the Jedi here."

"They did, from a layperson's perspective. But they couldn't see auras, not as Sarin could, they couldn't see who might be next. Had they known I'm not even so sure they would have been able to prevent what was happening."

Again she gathered the ends of her hair in her hands and wove them between her fingers tightly. According To Sarin, the Force could not be reduced to mere matter and molecules, nor the spirit and the intangible consciousness that she, like all sentient beings, possessed. _Whomever, whatever _had come for her that night on Baskarn, (whether she had truly sleepwalked or been commanded to venture into the forests), it had been _here _and had taken many victims before her. There was no mistaking the intent _that _night, its hatred for her, her terror while lost in the diaphanous strands of the hanging trees, her feet bathed with liquid fire. There was no mistaking her vision the day before, no mistaking what Luke had uncovered. She wiggled her toes, almost expecting fresh stabs of pain to shoot up her calves. Han said he couldn't even see the scars anymore.

_Tol'hi'denatakrd'ssessaal'rynryallenush_. Again, she tried to pick the sounds apart so that she could repeat them for her brother verbatim, but the words remained in sections of grayed memory.

_Niras_.

And he had taken Luke, as soon as their protection had been lost. If so, then the Supreme Prophet Kadann had been correct about Niras awakening, but not about him coming home. Leia switched her focus to her brother, took a cleansing breath and finally responded to his subtle pressure through the Force, soaking in the familiar presence. Her twin was as he'd always been to her, familiar and comforting. Maybe she reached out to be sure once more that Niras was never coming home again. Luke reached over and patted her shoulder as though he knew.

"I don't understand why me on Baskarn?" Leia wondered aloud. Noticing that the tips of her fingers were swollen pink blobs, she untwisted her hair and braved the holo-images again.

"There's no accounting for clear-mindedness," the Jedi considered thoughtfully. "Not after that many decades alone, bodiless. I'm sure there'd be a degree of disorientation."

Han snorted. "Being solid enough to actually _have _a mind notwithstanding, now you're saying he was confused."

"Or angry," Luke concluded, his voice approaching raspy, scratchy levels like that of a Rodian lost in the desert. "Corrupted beyond recognition to his own people, deceptive – a lackey for Palpatine. In turn, deceived and locked away in a living hell. Near as I'd describe the Korriban station."

"Great. Then even Jabba is out there grumbling at me still for all eternity to listen to." Han chuckled wryly to himself, amused, raising a merry fist and started down the halls. "I don't care. Hear that you overweight slug! Hear that!"

Without comment, Luke resumed his perusal of the holo-images taken of Palpatine's visit back as Advanced Base Baskarn, studying them curiously. Unbeknownst to her, Han had packed them up and shoved them in a bag before he'd 'tricked' her into escaping, though she'd not found them after they'd departed Tatooine. "He came back after he proclaimed himself the Emperor," he said.

"His interest in the planet was suspect, to say the least," Leia explained. "He had close ties to the Jedi Council, and the Council had extensive records on Yashuvhu. They averaged ten times the rate of Force sensitive individuals as the rest of the galaxy – and that was without purposely procreating. He would have been fully aware of all data." She bit down on her lip. "Harmakh _did _know who Sarin and Niras were?"

"Niras, yes, because he was a public figure. Everyone knows who he is and that he disappeared. But Sarin… no." Luke tapped the holo before him distractedly, setting his index finger on the straight nosed figure in Palpatine's shadow. The traitor. Each holo caught no more than his profile, incandescent and haloed with the sun behind him. "They were probably brothers," Luke answered, without waiting for her question. "Harmakh said the dardeinstoyed with their children's names, using anagrams and such, so that if they met later in life, at the temples, they would know each other. They typically weren't sent to the same temples, but Niras and Sarin crossed paths they might have known. They might not have been full brothers but they would have recognized their kinship to one another."

"We must assume that they did," Leia said, recalling that Sarin claimed his purpose upon leaving Yashuvhu had been to avoid Coruscant. It might have been, but she had a feeling he'd gone there at some point, that the temptation to meet his kin too great. Considering who Niras had been close to, was in any wonder that he'd turned his brother over to his…

_master_?

Had it been that way until her father? Had her father been part of it too? "He would have needed help," she insisted. "There's no way a lone Jedi, even a Dark Jedi, managed all this on his own."

"These were his people. He had the home advantage, so to speak, to carry this out. He would have been able to walk freely amongst them during the day."

"And then he weeded out the rest of the potentials from amongst the general population." Han rejoined the conversation with an old blanket that he promptly dropped on the plated floors where he'd stepped soaking wet and dripping mud. "If they killed little kids I can't even begin to tell you what they should have done to the guy that did it. There probably isn't anything painful enough."

"You're speaking for all of us there," her brother said softly.

Han kicked and sloshed his way from the passage to the holo-table, pausing and looming over them both. "_How _did they do it?"

"The same way Vader did."

"Creepy," the Corellian announced, reaching over and handing Leia a small vial of ointment. "You think about it, you could wiggle your fingers and... _Dead_."

"I _don't_," Luke insisted defensively, almost as if the older man accused him. "I haven't. I would never."

"But you could stand outside someone's home while they were inside, think about it, and do it?"

"Hypothetically… yes."

Han mumbled a filthy malediction and resumed mopping the deck. Leia watched, rubbed the bacta gel into her scratches and worried. There was always that chance that destroying the Korriban installation had been the wrong decision, that Harmakh's help would not be enough. Leia expected her brother to suggest leaving today, bowing out of any further engagements, and with a pang she realized too that no one who knew Sarin was likely alive here, and that no one would ever know his fate.

The recycling chute snapped shut and the muddied blanket slipped away. "What about our friends camped out by the river?" Han asked.

Luke said, much to her surprise, "We're not in any danger. Not really."

"Not really?"

"No, not really."

The pilot jerked slightly, making a face to show his patience was running thin. He was blunt. "Either you're joking or you're too damned cocky for your own good."

"I want to know who it is," Luke returned plainly. "I want to know who believed these prophecies with such conviction that they'd come here to find me."

"Capture you, not _find _you," came the rejoinder. "And us with you. Did you hear the part about how they don't give a damn what happens to us?"

"Han-"

"_Ahhh_." With a carnivorous swipe at the bulkhead, Han turned away from both of them. "I'm gonna go make sure this storm isn't wrecking my ship. I know I only get one vote here."

"Leia can you talk to him?" Luke asked.

By then, she wasn't listening to either of them, though distantly she knew that Han would calm down in his own time. She'd pressed her palm over the holo, spread her first two fingers into a vee, and was trying not to look down any longer at the faces from decades ago. 

* * *

It started, as it always did, with a whimper and a thrashing limb. And one word...

"_No_…"

Knowing that any second the 'nos' would become silent screams that made his blood run colder than any vocalized screams ever could, Han reached for her. "Leia, Sweetheart, you're dreaming."

"I've got to get up. I've got to get out of here..."

_Boom_!

A powerful wallop sounded to his right, as though she'd fallen out of bed in the process of getting off it. He thought he heard her say, "_Who makes beds round_?" and then she was flicking on the fresher lights. The door clicked softly behind her, taking back the light, leaving nothing but a stretch of moonlight silhouetting the furniture, gleaming off the painted walls and peerie designs.

When he went in Leia was lying on the piled kuba carpet between the bath and sinks in a fetal position. Her forearms were clenched together lengthwise and a balled up towel was in her fists and pressed against her mouth. Every muscle and tendon of her body was seized and tensed. Even the cords along the tops of her feet were rigid, and her toes were splayed wide apart. And she was making muffled sounds, like screaming and choking. Beneath the folds of the towel, her jaw was clenched and paralyzing breaths came and went choppy and broken.

Flinching, Han dropped to his knees and lay his hands lightly atop her. She was like a live wire against him, pulsing with energy and adrenaline and fear. The grogginess of just having woken left him, as though her energy was transferred by touch. It was the lights too. They were on full power, painfully bright. All around her sterile polished surfaces and mirrors shined. He blinked away his blindness. "What's wrong?"

The reply was both panicked and incoherent. "It's not... It's not…" Then finally she managed, "I don't know."

"It's the usual," he stated quietly, surprised at how calm his voice sounded, for inside he was churning mass of murderous rage that would have rivaled the Force temper of any Jedi.

"No," she began protesting. "No." Leia squirmed into a sitting position. The balled up towel dropped between them and she hammered blows down at her own legs. "I don't want this to be the _usual_. I want it all to _stop_. I want it to _stop_!" The timbre of her voice rose in increments, higher and higher. "I need it to _stop_!"

"I know," was all he _could _say. It didn't help.

"How can you _know_?" One fist swung out, grated along the under-sink cupboards. The skin on her knuckles whitened and curled back in strips. "You can't _know_. You can't know what it's like to dream about things you've forgotten, or things that are so awful you can't say them when I'm awake, or that he knows who I _am_..." She moved to strike her fist again.

"Hey!" Han reached out and caught her. The torrent of emotions that he had at first perceived to be grief and fear twining themselves together were anger and frustration. Settling back against the cabinets, he held her limb so tightly the bones of her wrist were sharp against his palm. The cold floors seeped against the pads of his feet, against the back of his legs, but he barely felt it. The outburst itself was normal, the acute flash of anger directed at her tormenters, at Tarkin, at her father – not at him. "You're right, I don't. I can't. I'm not you."

Her posture wilted. Her free hand made a vain attempt to stretch his old thermal shirt down over her thighs. "I'm sorry. I'm tired and this isn't your fault. You've had a long day too and don't need to be up."

"We've _all _had a long day. A _crazy _day."

"Why don't you go back to bed? I'll come in a little while."

"I'll go back to bed when you do."

Wrenching her arm from his grasp and grimacing, Leia closed her palms over her features again. "_Please_. I hate having you see me like this. I don't want you here."

Her demeanor was as it had been that afternoon in the forests, when she'd pushed him away rather than allow him to comfort her. He saw that often in her eyes and abided it, but there was no reason to abide it now, save her request and he'd heeded her too often in the past. Han drew her reluctant body against his. After a moment's resistance Leia rested her damp cheek against his collarbone, going limp all over, her sobs continuing. Emotions had already reached their climax by then, her grief ebbing, suffused by the lull of utter lethargy and fatigue of the heart. He splayed one hand flat over her spine and massaged her hip with the other. He told her he loved her. He told her things that he hoped were true, that everything was going to be okay.

When her crying began to quiet finally, he searched for neutral topics, for a distraction.

"I put in a message to the center on Kashyyyk. I'm set to contact Chewie tomorrow morning if he gets it. And he's gonna yell like a crazed rancor." There was no need to feign his apprehension. There were numerous occasions where he and Chewie had not agreed, but he had never run out on his first mate and he doubted forgiveness awaited him at the village landing platform. "I'll be hanging by my ankles trying to remember how far down it is to the planet's surface when we get there. I'll be begging for mercy."

Leia coughed against his breastbone, laughing, weeping, or both, he couldn't tell any longer. "But won't that completely contradict the purpose of having a life debt?"

Han shrugged. "There are a few clauses we've never gotten straight between us. It might potentially fall under the, 'teaching me a lesson,' or 'interfering with life debt responsibilities.'"

"Oh no." Sounding concerned, the princess rubbed at his tear stained shoulder reassuringly. "I won't let him. I'll throw myself in his path and explain to him that you saved my life and you were worried about me."

"Promise? I'm gonna hold you to that." Han stretched his arm out to the unit controllers and dimmed the lights to a tolerable level. "I mean it. You've never had a Wookiee angry at you."

"I promise." Leia shifted. "Are you still angry that we're not leaving yet?"

"Nah… I got over it already." Or he hadn't had much of a choice, lest he leave without Luke and he'd known Leia would talk him out of it and given in prematurely to save them all the protracted hassle. "_We're not really in any danger_…" What the hell was that supposed to mean?

She sniffed his hair. "I can still smell the river."

All Han could smell was the faint hint of the exotic incense that seeped through the walls of their guesthouse, or the sweet soap that Leia had washed her hair with last night. Frigid waters were remarkable odor free, he had thought. "No you can't."

"Yes I can."

Han tapped her temple. "Before we turn this into a real argument, what's going on in there?"

"I don't know. Nothing."

"It's a hell of a lot more than _nothing_. It's gotta be something."

"I'm never sure what's going on in there half the time," she said quietly, sitting back on her heels, chin bowed. "Everything feels inverted when I least expect it - or comes creeping in when I don't want it to." The undertow of grief and anger caught her in its wake again. She raised her gaze in what was nearly a challenge, unconsciously bringing a hand to her stomach. "It's almost worse Han, having been pregnant. I would have died protecting her. It's the most basic instinct of all species. I would have died to protect my flesh and blood and he should have been protecting _me_." Freshly bitter, Leia spat out, "I _hate _him for that on top of everything else!"

Vader had broken every moral code and life principle in the galaxy and it ripped through him with the force of a lunar tempest. They weren't so different, he and Leia, with what they could call their own in the universe, and that was next to nothing. Although they had been different once upon a time. Moreover, Han knew that he would not have wanted the woman who might have been Alderaan's queen the way he did this one. It was fair and selfish of him both to love her that way, as it was fair that she faced and voiced her inner turmoil without judgment from anyone else. "You have every right to feel that way. You'll never hear any different from me."

No sooner had he reassured her than she was shaking her head, almost repentant, falling onto her hip on edge of the carpet. "No? I can't. What am I saying? My brother says if I think this way that I'm starting down-"

"_Forget _what he says. Leia, for _once_."

"That's not how it works."

Taking her firmly by the shoulders, Han forced her to look up at him. "You haven't started growing horns and deflecting blaster bolts. You don't make a damn decision without considering the impact it will have on _people_, if it will benefit their lives or not. Not once in all the years I've known you." He reached up and cupped her cheeks, brushed back silky strands of hair. "You're good. You're so _good_, Sweetheart, you have no idea."

"Members of our family are capable of accomplishing a great deal of good," she told him, eye to eye, irises liquid brown yet unwavering. "But if we take the wrong path, we have the capacity for great evil. Our father didn't set out intending to become Darth Vader. Luke told me that when we were still on Endor, when it had all just happened – when I'd just learned–"

"You don't." He shook his head, shifted, and brushed away drying tears with the tips of his thumb. There wasn't a shred of doubt in his mind. In all likelihood, she would never become as powerful as her brother, even if the potential was there. She might never even become a full-fledged Jedi Knight. "Honey, _you don't_. I'm not wrong about you. Listen, I know I can't feel the Force the way you can, the way your brother uses it, but there are times when we throw our lot in on the right or wrong side. We've all been tested at some point. You have, I have. When in your life have you decided to break everything you knew to be just and decent because of power you held, huh?"

"I don't know that I have or I haven't," she replied. "I can't judge myself."

"That's not true. Ask Luke. Ask the Inner Council. Ask the Alliance. What makes you think you're not the same person you were before you knew?" What he was saying began to make in impact, he could see it, so he pushed on. "What makes you believe you won't be this person when the time comes for you to concentrate on developing your powers? It's not going to be the same for you as it was for your brother. You know that."

Leia rubbed at her opposite elbows. "I hate when you make more sense than the inside of my head. And you're right – it won't be. I can't be. Luke knew he loved him. In the end he had that and sometimes I think that even though he was the one destined to destroy him, to confront him, even though Ben and Yoda burdened him with a responsibility that was unfair - at the same time he was empowered by all that he knew and learned. And sometimes Han…I think, as selfish as it sounds, deep down I resent him for that, for having both the power to fight back and for finding his closure when he died."

Han wanted to say, "That's about the most honest thing I've heard come from you since Endor," but he didn't for fear it would sound condescending or startle her back her into denial. He said simply, "You two are at opposite ends of the spectrum."

Leia drew her arms inside his shirt as though she were chilled. The sleeves hung uselessly at her sides; the fabric stretched membrane thin about her slight frame so that the blush of her nipples and underwear was visible beneath. "We haven't found any middle ground yet. We might never."

"What about Baskarn? You both-"

"I know. _Tried_." Her tone was apathetic, as though she'd given up at some point when he wasn't paying attention. "He _wants _to understand, but lately I've come to realize that my motivations will never be the same as his. His concerns, his views as a teacher are clear; that I let go of my anger and hatred and fear. I won't."

Han struggled to make sense of the most logical conclusion. "Are you saying you've decided to _never _train?"

"No. I _will _follow my brother one day soon. And maybe I'll pretend that I've come to terms with who I am – or maybe he won't ask. But there will never be any forgiveness from me where Anakin Skywalker is concerned." She inhaled long and deeply, slipped her arms back out, shoved her cold hand roughly into his. "I'll follow my brother because I'm going to love my children more than I hate my father."

Han strained to keep his expression impassive and failed. He felt rapidly drunk, as though a Noonian Fixer had just been shot-gunned through his veins. "That's as genuine and honest a reason as any."

"Is it?"

Two weeks? Had it been only just over two weeks since the shootout in Elraden on Elrood, and only hours since she'd revealed the events. Two weeks since she'd wrapped her arms about him and he'd stood staring at her healing fingers waiting for the caf to brew and not knowing what to say. "_You're upset_", she had said. _You should have known what she meant this morning. You should have understood then_. Dazed, he squeezed her hand back to show he did now. "Yeah."

Then her eyes were shimmering brilliantly and painful to look into. He reached up and searched for a drinking vessel on the counter top, trying to remember if he'd left one on the nightstand in the bedchamber.

He asked her if she wanted to go to the kitchen for Vishay water, or tea, but she shook her head. "Luke's up, I think. I'd prefer I not go out there like this."

"Why?"

"Take a good look at me."

"Well you look..." he started saying. Her eyes were bloodshot and red rimmed, her face was splotchy and the first word springing to his mouth was 'beautiful.' Taking in all the trembling features until they made up the whole, Han leaned over and kissed her hard on the mouth. "Like you've been crying," he finished. "There's nothing wrong with that."

Her lips parted and sealed themselves. She tried to frown but the corners of her mouth wouldn't turn down. "You've always had such very interesting notions on how to make a girl feel better."

"We all have our talents." Han grinned because it was so apparent she was straining not to. That he could kiss her and have that affect on her made him feel like a t'landa T'il, like or a god, with his pheromones pumping rapidly through her system. He kissed her again, let his hands drift beneath her shirt and this time she was beaming and silly when they parted. One of his hands remained on her belly, trying to envision _their _future. "You might want to trade me in for someone with a clean past and reputable acquaintances before it's too late."

"No. No. Not a chance. Not ever."

With that she laughed, pushed herself off his shoulders to her feet, turned on the spigot and drank from her hands. Han did the same. They returned to their luxurious mattresses and settled in between the comforters and sheets. The white of his old shirt flashed in the moonlit darkness and fluttered to the floor.

"No more bad dreams," he commanded, taking her into his arms. "Not tonight."

Leia crawled on top of him and poked her toes between his ankles. "You didn't have to get up."

"But I wanted to."

"Does this all scare you then?" she asked.

_What? You? Us_? Still feeling oddly punchy or spice-happy and certain he would not sleep for hours, he said "No." And he meant it. And he needed to think. Then he added, smiling beneath the veil of scented hair raining across his face, thinking of the _Falcon_, Ben Kenobi's sand-worn floors, their bed, and lastly _this _bed. "And you're right."

"About what?"

"We _do _always end up on the nearest horizontal surface, don't we?"


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

* * *

The sounds of the Wookiee bellowing echoed all the way down the curved hall.

The Tas had been kind enough to have a comm unit set up in one of the spare bedrooms, and Han had promptly spent two hours 'sealing' the connection before he made this call. Although Leia knew better than to huddle outside eavesdropping, there she was, folded against the wall, amused. Traditionally, eavesdropping entailed listening on the sly; this one-sided exchange she would have heard in any wing of the house.

The sounds eventually caught the attention of her brother, who wandered down and took up a place beside her. Leia pressed a finger to her lips and tucked away her smile. As far as she was concerned, Han was getting exactly what he deserved. It had been this morning that he'd admitted, in his own words, that, "I kind of took off and didn't tell him where I was going." A deplorable act under any circumstances, more deplorable considering he'd abandoned his sworn protector, nearly broken his life-debt, though she was near to forgiving him on the Wookiee's behalf. After all, it had been for her sake.

The Corellian found an opening between growls. "Chewie, I'm trying to explain it to you but if you'd just shut up long-"

The raucous bellowing began anew.

Luke whispered, as though he might disturb the ongoing racket. "Han's going to be deaf by the time he gets out of there. Chewbacca isn't taking the explanations too well."

Han had been unable to complete a sentence yet. She nodded in agreement and murmured low as well. "It will be a wonder if Han dares to go retrieve him at all. This might be a very long vacation for him and Malla."

Clucking to himself, apparently sharing her predilection for amusement at Han's expense, Luke gestured to the bedroom. "Can we talk?"

"Certainly." Leia entered, smoothing back the coverlet on the bed and browsing to make sure no stray articles of clothing were strewn about. The pale sleeping shirt she'd dropped to the floor two nights ago lay tucked partly beneath the bed, forgotten. In an unusual change of pace, of habit, they'd been up for most of the night talking after the episode in the fresher, after making love. And she'd told Han her secret, about what she'd seen between her fingers on the holo in his hold. He'd already suspected, he'd told her, but hadn't been sure. _I would have known better than to mess with him, _he had said_. You can feel it just by looking at him_.

Much to her dismay, that day Han had left her to sleep, and she'd woken up believing it was an overcast morning, inevitably disorientated when the bedside chrono had insisted it was near dinner. Fearful the lethargic week on Tatooine had softened her, she'd insisted they both rise early today. She picked up the shirt. "What is it?"

"He came home for one standard month and then he vanished." Luke reclined on the rounded settee of lush sky-coloured velvet beside the window. "He was never heard from again."

"Who?"

"Niras Qu'aristoff."

"Oh. _Oh_." It was enough to drive her to sit down beside him. Then he'd done it. They had been nearly sure he'd done it, but there had been a sliver of a chance that they were wrong. His own homeworld. His own people. His people's children. It seemed inconceivable that one man could rape the culture that had given birth to him without mourning, without a conscience to save him. Unless of course… She glanced up sharply. "Is it possible that Palpatine was controlling him?"

His face flickered slightly. "The way I was controlled on Baskarn?"

"I didn't meant that," she replied, questioningly, wondering if she'd sounded accusatory without meaning to, or her twin was merely feeling sensitive. "I just meant-"

A particularly ferocious burst of Wookiee remonstrations silenced them. They raised their eyes at each other ominously and attempted to wait out the howling, until Luke finally slipped over to the door and sealed it. As he returned, he said, "It could be. It could very well be."

She regarded the sealed entrance morosely. "Or, perhaps Palpatine was covering his tracks. You can buy silence for so long. Were Niras ever to reconsider, confess to what he'd done, it would have been disastrous. Moreover, if he truly was that close to the Emperor there's no telling what he knew. When I was on Elrood, I double-checked. Vader became the Emperor's apprentice about the same time Niras disappeared from the picture too. Obviously, there wasn't enough room for the both of them at Palpatine's feet."

"No. There wasn't," he told her, as if he'd already given the matter extensive thought and was doubtless on that point.

Her chin inclined sharply. "The old apprentice is defeated by the new. That's the way it was supposed to be. The way it always was."

"What father asked of me. What he wanted."

A buzz of irritation claimed her. "Yes."

Thoughtful, reflecting as though he was alone, Luke continued. "I wouldn't be surprised if it had happened before, if father had been the winner. Palpatine knew it would have been father and I against him."

_Father, father, father_…

The thrice-mentioned title, as familial as it was honorific, drove her to her feet. The way he made it sound so… personal. "Why do you refer to him that way? He was never your father. He never earned that respect."

"He saved my life at the expense of his own." Her brother's face reflected his conflict immediately, though his conflict was with _her_, and not with himself. "He sacrificed himself so that I would live."

"So did Ben Kenobi, a man who actually did some good in his lifetime. Why don't you call him _father_? Why don't you call your Uncle Owen, who actually raised you and loved you, _father_? People that cared about you and loved you?"

Rising, the Jedi crossed his arms defiantly at first, and then dropped them sheepishly, almost embarrassed, as though a burst of cogency regarding his own behavior was occurring, as though she might be right in what she was saying. He said, "That's not the same. It's not the same at all."

"You're making too much of blood," she accused, twisting the sleeping shirt as if suddenly obsessed by the feel of the cloth against her palm. Hastily, she stepped over to the dresser and set the garment on the light grainy wood. She turned and pointed at him. "I was adopted _too_. You're not the only one who wasn't raised by your real parents. I don't dig my blood family out of the mire, out of the ashes, and call it my own for the sake of having one."

"This has never been a conscious choice to me," Luke replied. "It's who I am."

Moodily, her eyes wandered to the tinted glass beyond him, to the rainbow shaped camber. She and Han had lain upside down and watched the sun rise in pieces though the ornamental balustrade, a broken aureate moon in search of day. She resented her brother for bringing discord, his name, into what was a sacred space. "I'd rather have nothing," she heard herself say.

Gaping, he dug his knuckles against his breastbone, rapping so forcefully she heard them strike bone. "You'd rather have nothing?"

Leia took a deep and cleansing breath, stilled her hands against her thighs and toned down her voice. The last thing they needed was for Han and Chewie's shouting match to be usurped by their own across the hall. "I don't mean you. You're not hearing me," she told him, more quietly, resisting the urge to yell so that he did hear her; it was words and not volume that mattered. "There is a difference between fathering, siring offspring and being a father. Father should mean _safety, love, respect, childhood_. Everything he took away. I know you're desperately determined to hang onto the one decent thing he ever did in life Luke - but does his sacrifice truly outweigh his sins? Can it make up for any of it?"

"Are you going to hate me if I try?" He invaded her path of sight.

"No. But I'd rather you struck me across the face than refer to him that way in my presence."

Luke's cradled arms raised slightly, as though resistant on their own. "Dramatic, aren't we?"

"Or in our own private closet crammed with denial?"

A mass of blonde hair fell across his forehead as he shook his head. "Sister, neither of us are in denial. I do understand what you mean. I do." He proceeded with an effort to shunt the awkwardness off to a distant point, to a later point. "When we were on Baskarn I was – I _am _under the impression we have a lot to talk about. We haven't really had a chance to sit down and talk."

"No."

"I do want to. I meant it. When we get back to Coruscant. We have a lot of ground to cover."

Her reply was noncommittal; her focus blurred him away again. For if she stood there and said, "Did you know your niece would have died regardless of the stun blast because of him," she _knew _that Luke's spirits would have languished beneath that which was so luridly horrible, unspeakably horrible. Her private anguish was too strong and too overpowering; she didn't want to win that way against her brother, bowing his emotions down beneath the brute power of her own suffering. She felt guilty momentarily, for all she hadn't told him and wouldn't tell him; still, there was also a sense of righteousness beneath it. He needn't know it all, and protecting him was, by in itself, a small consolation, a power unto itself. She knew what it was like to have nothing left. She didn't want to strip away what little he had left.

"Besides," Luke went on, oblivious to his soul's fate, to her hovering ability to break him if she desired it. Both hands gestured between them innocently. "I've truly always thought he did at least three good things."

_You will find a middle ground_, she told herself. _You will. Have patience_…

"Don't you think?" he added, earnestly.

She answered, without sharing in his humour, "You? Me? Saving you? From a certain point of view I suppose he might have." It was as near to complimenting the Sith Lord as she would ever get in her lifetime. "What about the Tas Mos'ir?"

The erstwhile ruler owed them answers for the _Vibre-class _Assault Cruiser parked outside of his city. Luke had taken the coordinates yesterday and gone to scout on his own, only to return and inform them the craft had been moved. Contacting the Tas had become something of a battle. Yesterday, he had either been 'away,' or 'unavailable,' or 'not receiving visitors', and that was making answers hard to come by.

"I'll be seeing him in about an hour."

"A genuine appointment?" Leia inquired curiously.

"I believe I will be scheduling one at my leisure. Hopefully he won't be in his bath."

Leia laughed, freshly mischievous. _That _would be interesting. Then she saw and exclaimed all at once, "Your beard?" The month of shaded facial growth (to which she'd never grown accustomed) had vanished, leaving in its stead the much younger smooth cheek.

"Gone," he exclaimed, stroking his chin.

"Any special occasion?"

Luke grinned. "I'm going to retrieve scrolls."

The scrolls in question were a genuine source of excitement for him. Harmakh had kept everything. When the Yashuvhi Jedi had vanished that fateful night, the records keeper had gone to their temple and collected their writings away before anyone thought to dispose of it. He was giving it all to Luke.

"You're going just to retrieve scrolls?" She raised her tattooed eyebrow suggestively. "Or see her?

"Her?"

Leia played innocent. Though she hadn't been particularly impressed with Hataj the afternoon they had met, and had not seen her since, she suspected the girl had only been acting out to protect herself, or, as they'd since learned, to protect her uncle and avoid the Tas' advances. For that she didn't fault her. Actually, she was rather sympathetic to her plight having grown up on a world that had once had its own version of arranged marriages – at least within the royal families. It had effectively chained her aunts to their brother's side for the duration of their lives.

However, her brother's eye had not been that easily swayed these past few years, which saddened her from time to time; he wasn't like Ben, as much as he emulated him. This recent attraction (if Han knew what he was talking about) was welcome.

"Her," she repeated.

Understanding dawned on her brother's features like clear skies in the aftermath of a sun-shower.  
"Oh, don't you start, too," he mumbled. "You're both reading too much into it."

"You can't…" Leia chewed at her lip, not wanting to meddle, but wanting to voice her thoughts just the same. "You can't spend the rest of your life alone."

"And I can't bring another person into my life right now," he said, the conviction steady in his tone. "Someday maybe, but not now. Besides, we leave tomorrow. What would I be thinking? Put it out of your mind."

Wishing she'd been there for Han's side of that conversation, Leia let the issue go and began mentally categorizing her day aloud. "Well… they're broadcasting yesterday's assembly meeting in an hour on the Holonet. I'm going to watch it, take notes – hope that when I'll arrive at Coruscant I won't be too lost. And then... I'm preparing my Council speech."

"That's not necessary. I'm fully prepared to defend myself and take responsibility for the deaths of the crew."

Feigning indifference to his plea, she shifted one shoulder and fixed her gaze. "You're absolutely not going it alone. I have so much more experience than you do. Let it help you. Not to mention there's a very good chance I'll be facing censure for my own actions." She began pacing back and forth between the bed and the settee. "As well, there are going to be a number of considerations to take into account, a number of issues that will impact your case. I've been thinking. It seems to me that if it was so important that you not go back that day, Sarin could have done more to stop you. He could have influenced your ability to decide, the same way he altered the memories of everyone from the base. He might have told you that monster living in the woods with him was more dangerous than anything you'd ever encountered. However, he never did any of that, Luke. He chose the most passiveway to get his message across. He gave you no information and left you unqualified to even make any sort of decision." Another few steps and she halted at his side, regarding him insistently. Much of what she told him came from Han and their night-long discussion, but the bulk of it was common sense culled from private reflection over the past several weeks. "I'm not saying that he let it happen, exactly, but he didn't stop it. In addition, he told me not to turn back even if you did. He made me promise. Have you ever stopped to wonder about that? I have. I have ever since that day."

"He wasn't suicidal. I would have felt that – he couldn't have hidden it from me."

"But willing to be a martyr if it was called for? You couldn't know that. Maybe he was following his sense of honor, of duty." Leia paused. "All I'm getting at, is that if I were you, I would give due consideration to the fact that a Jedi Master allowed it to be simple for you to turn around and go after him, while at the same time making sure I would not. What you've wanted more than anything for all these years was knowledge. He knew that."

"This is all going to be part of my presentation to the Council." Knowing there might be pre-session coverage, Leia moved for the door. The Wookiee had gained a second wind and the howling slammed into her with the force of a stun blast. She covered her ears and briskly moved to the common area.

Luke switched on the holo-unit and took a seat.

The advance coverage was just beginning, covering trivial events and upcoming legislation issues. Leia watched half-interested until a pair of strong hands clasped her shoulders, wringing knotted muscles until she winced. "Chewie?"

"Is one very, very pissed off Wookiee."

"Yes. I was getting that impression through the walls." Leia craned her neck back so that she was looking up at him. "You've arranged to pick him up?"

"I turned the receiver off," he said, pausing between each syllable and word so that he sounded like a droid with a faulty speech program.

"That's not going to help matters any. You're only going to make him angrier."

"Nah. You don't know him the way I do. I'll try again later when he's gotten control of his temper. You can go ahead and use it if you want."

"Are you positive it's secure enough for me to check my messages?"

Han rolled his eyes. "Are you sure you understood me the last few times I said yes?"

Leia made a face at him and turned back to the holo-unit. The recycled clips showed three former Intelligence officers men being arrested and shoved into transports. A voice over announced that they were being charged with a recent attack on a New Republic outpost. The charges listed were tampering with New Republic property, forgery, attempted treason, and attempted terrorism. According to the announcer, the arrests were the result of a month long investigation into the New Republic Intelligence division by Airen Cracken, who purportedly brought in outside counterintelligence.

"Harkness must have delivered the messages," Luke commented.

There was only one comment from the aged head of Intelligence, given when a green holo-journalist dared to ask him why even the uppermost echelons of his branch had been kept in the dark. Cracken said; "Even if I marooned them on Kessel without a single communication device, one of you would have managed to find them and broadcast it all over the galaxy. How would that have served us?"

Han laughed.

After Cracken's comment, a sub-screen opened in the upper right corner. The New Republic delegates were in an uproar because the outpost's location was being kept secret. They were also infuriated because pre-trial hearings were to be held in closed courtrooms to prevent leaks. Borrsk Fey'lya's furry face appeared, passionately exhorting that funds should never have been diverted to the head of the Intelligence branch without Inner Council approval.

She sighed loudly. "He'll never change. He'll never understand that the Council is as dangerous a place as any to hand out that information."

"That's probably because he's responsible for the majority of the press leaks," Han commented.

"I dare you to say that to his face," Leia returned, deciding this was an opportune chance to start on her messages. A public rant from Fey'lya was a news item she could afford to miss. And the news was welcome, though her subsuming relief was piecemeal. It might not be enough that they knew who had placed the thermal detonators on the _Razion's Edge_.

Moments later, she'd cracked into her Coruscant comm service, and was not in the least surprised that there were nearly one hundred messages awaiting her. However, she was very surprised that the last three were from Yail Taskeen. 

* * *

"And where might your Tas be?"

The servant blinked softly. "Who are you?"

"I have an appointment with His Majesty. I need to know where to find him."

"Yes…. You have an appointment. He resides in the right wing." He pointed. "That way."

Manipulating the malleable minds of the few guards stationed around the manor was effortless, though it helped that he had not encountered more than a pair at a time. Luke navigated his way through the corridors, past the main hall where they'd eaten dinner, past the offices where the ruler and he had had their discussion days ago. It seemed incredible that all of his wives lived within this manor, all of their children, all of their help; it seemed incredible that peace could be maintained, although his sense upon trespassing through their residence was that it was peaceful. It might have been their affinity for curving architecture, for soft bends where edges would have cut space away unnecessarily. The style gave an illusion of spaciousness. Luke had to admit, he'd had grown rather fond the native design.

As the attendant had directed him, the personal living areas were set toward the back of the manor. The main foyer leading into them was dazzling. Fiery opal walls were blanketed by a miasma of local artistry, an effluvious haze of garish textiles, golds and silvers. Centuries old incised stone passed beneath his feet; antediluvian furniture was set out for show. He reached the royal apartments and passed through a day room where breakfast was waiting, then into a second day room that was wall-less, opened to winter air.

There the heavy cloaked Tas stood, pressed up against the balustrade with his hood drawn forward, holding a long stemmed pipe and watching his emerald-feathered pets somersault and bound their way through across the first seasonal snowfall. Only one Duuvhal remained to flank him and it grunted in warning upon his approach. The Jedi dampened his aggression with barely a thought.

"I see you're resorting to your Jedi trickery."

"You're resorting to hiding behind your servants and advisors."

The Tas lifted his pipe to his mouth and inhaled deeply, sending wisps of smoke above his head. Ice crystals were forming in the beard beneath his lower lip. "We each have our means."

"Pardon me, Your Grace, but it seem we each have our intentions." Luke crossed to the balustrade, locking his arms behind his back. He had not come to threaten the Tas or interrogate him; the lightsaber by his waist would still effectively have the elder man on guard. "There's a difference."

"Aha, but this is my home."

"There was an Imperial assault cruiser parked about twenty kilometers away from here."

"Was there?"

"Who are they and when did it arrive?"

The Tas was unfazed, unresponsive to his prodding. "They arrived several days before you did," he replied. "The same day your government messaged to inquire about your whereabouts. But you needn't sound so insulted - you did not ask."

Skywalker grimaced. Playing petty word games was not on his agenda. For the Tas had known, and he had been concealing that knowledge during their first meeting, just as he was managing to conceal his feelings now. "Where are they now and what do they want?"

"They were rather ambiguous about it. They professed a rather extreme interest in you and wanted information regarding a man by the name of Niras. I presume you know who he was?"

"I do," he said, taking a breath so deep his chest twinged. According to Leia there were two groups of individuals who knew the importance of the name _Niras_. One was the Supreme Prophet Kadann and his followers. The second was the splinter sect of the old Royal Imperial Guard. If Han and Leia were correct, and the men they'd seen were not part of the Guard. That meant the Imperials had to be accompanying Kadann.

The head of state nodded. "Pardon me for wanting to make sure. Now, if you know of Niras then you know that he vanished decades ago and has never been heard of since," he continued. "To be honest, I found their queries rather odd and their purpose discrepant. They asked if they could remain pending some research."

_Or they paid well_, Luke thought.

"As such, I permitted it."

"They're under the impression they've struck a bargain with you."

"I choose to leave everyone the impression that they've struck a bargain with me. It makes affairs run much more smoothly. Besides, you leave on tomorrow. I'm certainly not intending to stop you. And such a small crew will have little chance seizing you, a Jedi Knight."

"Unless you're feeling inclined to cooperate with them," Luke amended. Perhaps they stood a chance against the small crew, but should the planetary security force decide to cooperate, their odds of escaping dwindled considerably. Briefly, he debated his courses of action. If he chose to retrieve the scrolls from Harmakh and leave before the farewell banquet, that would place him in a sticky diplomatic situation; if this was truly Yashuvhu's first impression of New Republic delegates, he did not want to flee on the eve of their departure based on mere suspicions. Local law might intervene in the meantime, should any problems arise. Of course, there was no telling what private agenda the Tas was entertaining.

"You've been at liberty since the day you arrived. I've only asked one thing of you," the Tas Mos'ir added.

Knowing this meeting would end unsatisfactorily if he pressed further, Luke straightened his back. "Allow me to thank you for the hospitality you've shown us since our arrival. It's been most gracious of you. However, if you think that Empire holds any power now, that striking a bargain with them will garner you a safe haven, a foothold, than you are gravely mistaken. There is no Empire." Sensing an intrusion, Luke turned to find another attendant, a teenager, in wait.

The boy bowed quickly, eyeing the Jedi's weapon clipped to his hip with rapt fascination. "The Lady is waiting. And would your guest care for a beverage."

"No he wouldn't and tell her I won't be long," he instructed, waving toward his pets. "I've no wish to rush them this morning. They're enjoying themselves. In addition…" He glanced toward Luke again. "Please tell the guards we'll have a guest to be escorted out. He lost his way earlier. We want to make sure it doesn't happen twice in one day."

"It won't," Luke answered, wondering which of his wives was waiting. Was there a system? A head wife?

"One of their representatives is invited this evening. He wished to be introduced to you; I agreed to that. But no young man, I am not so naïve."

"No, I don't believe you are," he returned, bowing his head in farewell, opting to meet his escort halfway through the manor. "And I appreciate the warning."

After contacting Leia by comm, he warned her and Han to be on high alert, and ready the _Falcon _just in case. After a brief consultation, Leia agreed that avoiding any touchy diplomatic incidents was the wisest move.

It was not until he neared Hataj's dwelling that he realised the Tas had asked nothing of her; rather, he'd alluded to the request he'd made the very first evening, but not asked for an answer. At first, Luke was relieved, but by the time his hand was upon her door, he was worried. It meant there was a good chance that he already knew.

Entering as though he was a habitual guest, he located Harmakh's great-niece in the kitchen, preparing the ceremonial yammansk as though she'd known he was coming. Her face was somber and reflective from afar, brightening when she saw him. After the previous day's session with her uncle, the small house smelled familiar to him, comfortable, and the veiny arching stone walls were homey. Even her slightly clipped accent sounded proper.

"Luke! That's so strange." She gestured to the elaborate spread. "I had the sudden urge to make this – which I never do alone, and here you are."

"Drink tea alone?"

"Yammansk," she explained. "It's more of a social tea."

It took him a moment to separate _strange _from the simple fact that ordinary people frequently yielded to premonitions. Reflecting on the vague sense of intoxication he'd fought off the first afternoon, Luke nodded. Social tea indeed.

She answered before he could ask, shoving back her midnight hair before breaking the tea leaves. "My uncle left the scrolls in the basket by the front door. You're sure you won't need a translator for them?"

"I have someone," he told her. With six million forms of communication programmed into his memory, he was counting on Threepio's ability to translate an old version of Basic precisely. Or learn it very quickly.

"He told me everything after you left," she blurted out. "I could never understand why the Tas treated me the way he did. Now I know, I belong to I belong to the Force. And because of that I belong to the Tas."

His reaction was sharp. "You belong to yourself, first and foremost. And everything is part of the Force. Your uncle, your home." He wrapped his knuckles on the countertop. "This surface, the gardens outside, your planet, your sun." In his mind, he could hear Yoda speaking as clearly as if it were yesterday. _Life creates and makes us grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us… between you and that tree and that rock. Everywhere_. There'd been little occasion to repeat the philosophy until now, and he was conscious of the strangeness of it as he spoke, remembering his own befuddlement.

"But you're different. It guides you."

"It's not so much my guide as my ally. I have a responsibility to it because it empowers me, a mutual respect."

"Hmm." She babbled on while putting the final touches on the tea, much as Leia had earlier. "I belong to or have accountability to a _Force _I cannot feel or even begin to comprehend." She filled a clouded glass with the pungent smelling tea and passed it too him, silvery bracelets jingling. Tealeaves that had evaded the filter eddied on the surface. "What does that mean for me, Jedi Master Skywalker, Luke? I've no one else to ask save you. What does it mean? Tell me." Suddenly, her harrowed eyes were expectant. "Can you fix me? Can you undo it?"

"I don't even know how they would have done it, save that it was a last resort to protect you. I've never encountered anything like it."

"Then I'm responsible to something that will give me nothing in return," she murmured abjectly. "That's how it will be. And the old traditions of Yashuvhu will return and I'll be subject to them. To protect me," she whispered, depressed, uselessly focusing on what was most apparent, over and over. "Even if it was to protect me, it's not going to protect me anymore. He'll find out. You don't know him. He'll find out and find a way to force me to marry him. My uncle will die alone."

Luke sipped back a scalding mouthful, instantly numbing his tongue like a film so that he tasted none of it. Foolishly, he offered her his word. "I won't tell him. I won't let him."

Wild gold eyes flashed over her shoulder. "And do you enjoy making promises you can't keep?"

"I always keep my promises," he replied, following her to the common room and forgetting that that was not true, that he had broken one to Leia not so long ago. At that moment though, it was not intentionally a lie.

"We all mean to," she advised.

"I mean it," he replied.

The girl sank against the cushions, cradled her tea and sipped cautiously from the rim. "I was curious about something. Two days ago when we went to the market you said your sister grew up on a different world than you. Was that so that you might be protected also?"

"We were separated so that we might be protected, yes."

"Was it the same man who came here? Were there others who did what he did, traveled from world to world."

"Our circumstances were unique. We were hidden from our father."

"Hidden?"

Grimly, Luke opened a few fragments of the past to her. Without naming him, he described his heritage in an opaque fashion, alluding to his father's fall to the Dark Side, to their eventual confrontations and his redemption. Throughout, she remained keen to listen, fascinated, but she never asked him any questions, as though she knew that a single interruption might silence him straightaway. Had he not known better he might have imagined they'd been brought together to play out the duration of an awkward courtship. She clasped her hands together over her knee politely, maintaining a prescribed distance, immobile and still as dead air. There was no chance to reconsider, and he filled the air with his story, his side, until he had nothing left to tell her.

When he finished, she said, "I know all this makes you who you are, but why did you come _here_? It can't just have been to research old Jedi ways. Because it's more than that, isn't it? Something greater must have led you here."

"You're right." Disembodied memories clawed at him briefly. "Something happened. I have no recollection of it, but still…" He almost ended it there. "I'm accused of doing something terrible and I have no recollection of it."

"You're not guilty," she pronounced, honing in doubtlessly on the question balanced in his mind. "I know you aren't. Whatever you did."

Even Luke had to admit that he was beginning to think the same. However, he was hanging on to the vestiges of his guilt, defiantly. If after these long weeks he believed in his innocence, that was only the beginning of the battle. It would matter what others believed. It wouldn't do for him self-righteously separate his inner self from his physical self and the irrevocable fact that it had been his physical self that had committed the massacre. Even if, as Leia had reassured him, this would not be the first time the New Republic was faced with an individual whose guilt and innocence were both absolute. There had been several cases of mind control in recent months. He, as a sentient being, was not unique; however, being a Jedi made him a danger. The New Republic deserved better than that.

"After all, if you can forgive your father for the terrible things he did knowingly, why can you not forgive yourself for something you did and can not remember?"

Clearing his throat, he reached for his glass and saw that he had unwittingly emptied it already. "I don't know. I'm not sure I have forgiven him. It's more that I strive for it, and when I hear myself say it… I suppose I can almost believe it."

"This trip; I'm curious." She set down her tea and, haltingly, began lightly stroking his arm. "Would you have come here someday, regardless – to learn about our healers?"

"Probably."

She smiled. "Good. I'd like to believe I would have learned the truth irregardless eventually."

"It matters to you?"

"It matters to me that my fate was inevitable. It will make my fate easier to bear."

"Why do you say that?" Luke caught her moving hand and turned it over, losing his query, losing his breath. Criss-crossing scars, pale as gossamer thread, etched across her flesh from the heel of her palm to her elbow, peeking between the silver bands, a warning. He'd never seen them before as she'd always worn long, clinging sleeves.

"We all take solace in knowing certain things are inevitable. I don't want to live wondering 'what if?'"

He didn't hear her, tracing the lattice of faded pain, the patterns. "What happened?" he asked dumbly, though the scars were universally familiar. Anyone would know.

"It's not what you think," she said, gentle with her explanation, without drawing the willowy limb back. "I was young and foolish and only wanted to harm myself – before I made sense of it all. I believed that I was right and the rest were wrong. I wanted someone to see."

_Such pain_, he thought. "Did they?"

"Perhaps not the way I wished them too, but yes, they saw."

When Luke reached for his empty tea yet again with his free hand, Hataj passed her own to him. He drank it in three gulps. Then he found his tongue again, wondering what his former mentors would have said. "Perhaps you were seeking the truth about yourself, even then," he considered thoughtfully. "Many philosophers say that only in our darkest moments do we really learn who we are. When we are not tested enough, we can be driven to seek those moments out."

"I learned that I preferred to survive, above all else," she responded, slipping her wrist free and squeezing his fingers instead.

"That's the only sort of person I know any more."

She considered that, and then laughed at him warmly, embracing him. "But you've been at war for ages, Luke."

It felt like it had been several lifetimes ago that anyone had touched him with affection, save perhaps a clap on the back or the occasional embrace from his sister (whose words that morning were suddenly at the forefront of his mind, for many reasons, but primarily because the notion of spending his life in a form of self-imposed isolation did not appeal to him deep down). It seemed that he could barely remember how nice it felt and he did nothing to dissuade her, while at the same time an ineffable hunger, a yearning so powerful it nearly left him nauseous when it overcame him. The mindblindness that plagued him around her felt as though it had lifted.

_Her leg wound across his hip, her reddened mouth parted slightly, the tip of her tongue stroked her upper lip, exhaling moist breath against his throat… "Luke_…"

The future was mutable.

In the present, suddenly he was kissing her tenderly, unsure if he had initiated the kiss or she had. His hands were buried in her hair, spooning the back of her neck so that she could not pull away.

_Stop_…

What he was envisioning could not come to be. He could not allow it. He drew his face back and laughed softly, as though nervous, a habit he thought he'd left behind on a sand-covered world or an abandoned rebel base.

"What is it?"

"I should go. I really need to go. I'm sorry…" He leaned over and pressed his lips to hers once again, maybe to make up for what he was saying, maybe subconsciously hoping his will would break. "I have to leave now. I'm sorry." It was terrible to say it. He eased his body off the lounge and moved for the door without looking over his shoulder, trying to not see her. "I can't start something I can't finish. Not this way."

Her voice was confused and hurt all at once. "So then you do not belong to yourself either," she called. That was the last he heard her say and then the sibilant sounds of running transports drowned out any possibility of his hearing her call after him further.

When their guesthouse appeared at last, a bruise on the snow-heavy horizon, he found Leia huddled beneath the arching frontispiece as though waiting for him. Chilled and aching after the long walk back, he could only wonder if 'moral dilemmas' were perceptible through their Force bond. He sincerely hoped that they were not.

"Everything all right?" he asked her.

"Yes." Holding her thickly bundled arms out to indicate emptiness, she noted, "You didn't get the scrolls after all?"

Luke groaned inwardly. They were by the door in the basket, exactly where he had left them. "I'm going to pick them up later," he lied. Her expression masked worry that had not resolved itself since his arrival. "What are you doing out here?"

"Have you seen Han?"

"No, not since before I left."

"I can't find him. I don't know where he is."


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22  
**

* * *

"You shouldn't have come."

That's what Han called, as soon as he heard the forward hatch depressurize and release. He'd forgotten that he'd drilled the _Falcon's _access codes into Leia on Baskarn, and forgotten that she had a memory like whip snapping back and forth. The lights were dimmed; he hadn't bothered to replace the blown overhead panel yet so he couldn't see precisely what it was that Leia was holding out to him. Whatever it was, his comlink promptly buzzed cheerfully.

"You know, you could have answered me when I was trying to reach you. At least now I know you weren't in trouble. You were only deliberately ignoring me.

"I answered your brother." Han brushed at his knee. "What more did you want?"

"What more did I want?" Her hair was crawling free and tangled, dusted with powdery snow. She looked both worried and perplexed. "What's wrong with you? What are you doing here?"

"I'm having a drink," he mumbled, though that was more wishful thinking than a statement of fact. Though he'd poured himself a drink with every intention of dulling his senses, he wasn't drunk and couldn't dull an itch if his life depended on it. There was a horrible tightness in his chest, and his throat barely obeyed his command to send the liquid down. It stuck behind his tongue, burning and choking like a fire-fizzy Gamorrean brew mixed with sand.

It was only the remainder of the bottle from that night on Tatooine, but she didn't recall or wasn't paying attention. She saw only the empty carafe. She said, "Oh, I see," as though she actually did, adding, "And the farewell banquet is in less than two hours. Did your brain completely space the fact that we have an official engagement?" Her gaze was reprimanding, clearly saying, _I expect better than this. _

Han shrugged. The booth creaked sharply beneath him. "I changed my mind about going."

"What's wrong?"

"What do you think?"

"I have no idea. I hope you're going to tell me."

Setting the aureate-misted tumbler and its contents on the gaming table, Han reached into his outer jacket pocket and tossed the balled-up flimsiplast by her feet. His voice sounded unfamiliar to him. "Did you do it just for the money? Naturally, I'm somewhat curious. Where I come from, fifty million credits is a lot of money."

Leia studied the flimsiplast on the floor with a morbid fascination but did not move to pick it up. She looked ill. "The money?"

"Yeah. The money." Han watched the point of her tongue flick across her lips; he saw the awareness come over her like the flash tides of Algeron, sweeping their victims out to sea in a wave of amber seawater. _Only the guilty_, they said. For effect, he added, "Taskeen."

The messages had been short enough. He hadn't even realized at first that the messages were for her initially. Just that her name was at the top.

_Leia._

(Not 'Councilor Organa,' or 'Your Royal Highness.' There was _her _familiar name, plain as day, in aurebesh. The casualness had struck him before he'd processed _why_.)

The first two had been perfunctory and business-like, dispatching his accountant's names, lawyers, mentioning contractual obligations he wanted her to review to make sure they weren't in conflict with NewRepubliclaw. They were both several standard weeks old. Where ever he'd been when he sent them, Yail Taskeen had obviously not heard that Leia was no longer a Provisional Councilor, nor had he heard from his well paid contacts that she'd been declared missing by New Republic Intelligence. He'd had a funny feeling in his gut before he realized about her name. Just as he'd known that Garris Shrike would kill him if he ever set eyes on him again. Just as Lando's proclamation that he'd made a deal to keep the Empire out of CloudCityhad sounded… _wrong._

The last one had had precious little to do with financial matters.

_I'll be at Coruscant on 94426. Dinner again? I look forward to seeing you_. _On a more personal note, I loved the red dress. Yail._

It all fell into place. Naturally, he'd imagined filthy rich, powerful, some polished and over-educated bureaucrat in the upper echelons of her political circle. Never been this bad, not with a man who could buy her a _new_ Alderaan, not with a man who give her all the things he never could. Not a man who'd lost everything she had, with whom she had so much in common. It made what he'd wanted to offer her these last few days seem pathetically paltry and insignificant.

And then, feeling tenebrously numb, standing at the blinking screen (it kept asking him if he wanted to reply when what he wanted to do was un-holster his blaster and use it as target practice), he'd recalled their ill-seasoned conversation weeks ago in their quarters on Baskarn. He'd been sitting on the edge of her floral printed bed while she worked at her console, when they'd both had been so confused and hurt they hadn't known what to do with one another. He'd been trying that day, or fighting the urge to try with her – it was all a blur. Nevertheless, he distinctly remembered commenting on Taskeen and the money, having read about it in the TriNebulon Newsjournal. In retrospect, it seemed she had been acting strangely when he brought up the name, that her discomfiture had been apparent. There was no longer any doubt

Now he had a face. He had a name. He could picture them touching, them lying in bed together, her skin beneath his hands, her thighs beneath his mouth, his name on her tongue. The rigid codes that defined him as male were inflexible, jealous; possessed by a sense of ownership some might deem a trademark of Corellian eugenics. Filaments of anger had been coalescing for hours now, deep within him, turning into a gnawing fire of conclusions and morose suspicion. He wished she hadn't come, unwilling to believe the worst of her, yet faced with too much evidence not to.

_But you know her_, he'd told himself a thousand times since then. _You know her better than this_.

_Or you don't... and you've been wrong about people before._

"You didn't close the transceiver today," he explained. "You didn't sign off."

"I didn't?"

"No."

"I thought I did," she insisted feebly.

Though the fact was rather moot, Han repeated himself. "No."

"I thought…" The Alderaanian Princess sagged into herself. "Han, I thought we'd been through this."

"Through what? You never did tell me who he was." The padded bench cushions felt hard against his back. The table-edge gouged where his elbow braced against it. The entire ship, full of scarred oily metals, sooty grates, patched plating and jagged corners seemed barbed to him, lethal and unfamiliar. It made him feel steeled inside, callous even, as though he had to bear up to endure it all, as though it was his veridical nature to distance himself. The woman at the center of it all wasn't saying anything, and that, perversely, angered him several degrees more. Leia _always _knew what to say, and yet, there she was, mouth squeezed together the way she did when she was incredibly nervous, struggling for words and looking in his general direction without meeting his eyes.

_Defend yourself_, he thought desperately. _At least try to convince me I'm getting this all wrong_.

She said, "It's not what it looks like. I know what it looks like and it's not true. It just happened."

The reply was so woefully insubstantial, so overused in every culture that he laughed mordantly, blatantly mocking her. "_Sure _he didn't plan it. Now that's something to be proud of, isn't it? You picked a player whose only intention _would _be to get under your skirts and you fell for it." Han flicked his thumb along the underside of his lip toward her. "Come on, what'd he do?" he asked lackadaisically, as though they were new confidantes and he was coaxing her innermost secrets from her. "Invite you to dinner to show off his wine collection? Pull out a wad of credit vouchers and offer it to the Alderaanian refugee fund if you agreed to lie down for him? It _happened_ and getting fifty million credits are two completely different realities."

The initial shock of his finding out began to wear off, to be replaced by livid indignation. Eyes afire, she shook her head, flinging the damp from her hair. Water dripped onto the deck. "Han, no-"

"Tell me something else, Sweetheart. "It was just sex, right? Was it part of the deal from the start? Cause it must have been great? An all-star performance in his bed."

"Don't you _dare_-"

"You should have told me _who_! You should have told me who he was!" Han was shouting. Dropping his fists to the holo-table, he jerked his body out from the booth, snatching up the flimsy before she could, not wanting her to read it again. "I actually said it that day in your room," he laughed thickly. "_A guy like Taskeen could buy anything_. You remember that? Don't tell me you don't because I know you do. You must have been so fucking panicked, hearing me say his name when you-" It barely came out. The cold was wafting off her so close up like a living thing. "You lost his child only days before. You knew. I bet you were thinking I would put two and two together, huh? Oh, I'm sure you remember."

She nodded, letting out a taut breath and barely speaking above a whisper. "Of course, I remember. I didn't lie to you then. I'm not lying to you now."

"But you didn't tell me the truth, did you? You didn't tell me what you should have when it counted. I said he could buy anything. I didn't mean anyone. I didn't mean you."

Leia let out a sigh that was more of a groan and leaned back against the bulkhead as if for support. She covered her face with her fingers protectively then slowly tugged them down. "Don't you know me better than that?"

"I thought I knew you better than a lot of things."

"I didn't lie to you, Han. I couldn't tell you. I couldn't go through that day in the medcenter. I couldn't go through what we did when we left Baskarn. Don't think I'm not mindful of how it appears. I don't know why he did what he did. I don't even want to know."

"How can you not know?" Maybe she had spiraled along on more of a self-destructive path than he had expected when he left her.

"I'm not going to ask him. I believe he planned to make those funds available to us before me," she told him, haltingly. "As I said, I _am_ mindful of how it presents itself to an observer." Leia reached to unfasten the top clasp of the jacket with restless fingers, then paused, as if thinking over how long she intended to stay onboard. "Beyond that, what is it you're so angry about exactly? You've known all along there was someone else, _once_. You've known for over a month now! Is it that now you know his name and can't handle it, or that you actually believe this mynock-brained theory of yours?"

"Well now," Han remarked. "It's not such a theory if even _you_ know what it looks like, is it? And this isn't about me. Don't play the politician and spin this back me."

Frustrated, Leia railed a flat palm against the carbon-scored siding with a resounding smack. "It's ironic, isn't it? If memory serves me correctly, you actually _did _sell yourself and your piloting skills to the highest bidder for years. You did a lot less good for the galaxy collecting your credits."

It took every ounce of his willpower to refrain from forcing her off the _Falcon_. "This is not about me," he hissed for the second time, starting for his cabin.

Leia fell into step behind him. "Moving it along, why yes, that's right. It's about _us_, isn't it? _You _and _me_. How about this then? One of these days you're going to have to face yourself, Han. You're going to have to face the fact that you always assume the worst about people - that you persist in clinging to a religion where the next guy is out to burn you no matter what and no one else is watching your back. I'm not out to get you. My first thought when you walked out my door was not 'how can I hurt you' the most."

Han reached his quarters and slapped the control unit before she finished her last sentence. The portal sealed between them. "I don't think that."

"What do you think?" came her muffled reply.

His river-soaked clothes of two days ago were still piled on the floor. Han picked them up and dropped them the sani-steamer, trying to decide whether he believed her so far.

Leia got the point and pounded on the door. "You're locking me out of your cabin?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to talk to you."

"That's just great."

_My sentiments exactly_. Han stretched out on his bunk with his boots on, determined to stay put until she gave up and left. The resolution wasn't easy to keep.

A minute later, he heard her shifting the deck-plates and mumbling something that sounded like, "I know the small explosives are in here somewhere." At least, that's what he thought he heard. After turning the implications over a dozen times in his mind, feeling somewhat frantic, Han couldn't will himself to ignore her – if she found a half-charge that wouldn't blow more than a fiberplast panel she might just use it.

When he opened the door he found her buried waist deep in the storage compartment with (Han craned his neck to see) a crate of plasticene thermite beside her. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I wasn't done talking," she muttered.

"Are you ever going to see him again?" he asked.

Leia peered back up at him with one brow raised, following his unspoken threat to its conclusion. "These were financial negotiations Han," she explained curtly. "They'll have to be re-addressed. I'm still a representative for Alderaan; I'm still the NewRepublicliaison for the Survivor's Fund. I can't abandon it because of my own impropriety, because _you _feel threatened by him."

"Oh, don't make it sound so fucking noble, Leia. No one's handing out standing ovations for maintaining your image and upholding the archaic views of the Council of Elders. I don't want you to see him again. I don't care about the his economics, whether or not the Survivor's fund collapses, your approbatory review in the _Alderaanian Free Press_- whatever have you. I don't give a damn."

"Who's being noble now? You don't give a damn about what happens to the Survivor's Fund?" Leia hoisted herself up and out of the compartment, nearly catching herself on her coat. She pressed herself up onto her toes. "You can't dictate to me. This is not the thirty-fifth century on Corellia and not how our relationship works. You can be paranoid and jealous and if you want to wallow in it all, be my guest, but I've had enough of your ultimatums to last me a lifetime. You forfeited the right to pass judgment on me the second you walked out the door. That's life."

The trump card had been yanked from the center deck at last. Han clapped his hands together egregiously, staring her down. She looked like she wanted to slap him and hard. "I knew this would come up. We're back to me leaving and I'm to blame for everything. You going to bed with him. You getting pregnant. Probably even the entire mess with your brother on Baskarn. Fabulous, honey."

"Right." Glaring at him purposefully, Leia shifted to the left, hoisted her comlink, juked her elbow back and pitched it at the siding above his head.

It was hard enough to make a fearsome thwacking sound, but not hard enough to dent the ceiling. The _Falcon _had been constructed to withstand more than a human female's temper tantrum. Still, he took the gesture for the insult it was intended and waggled a finger in her face. "Don't you dare touch my ship. No blasting the hatches, no throwing anything."

"Then you shut up and listen to me. I've made an effort to understand where you were coming from. You could do the same."

"Hey. I was straight up with you from the start, before I ever left Coruscant. His name came up." The finger waggling continued. "You should have told me who he was. Because you know what it feels like to find out now? Huh? Do you have any idea? It's like a huge kick in the gut. As a matter of fact, I'd rather be back in carbonite than _think_ about it. I'd rather be over the scan grid on Bespin than _think _about it."

The remarks hit her hard enough to elicit a physical wince. "Don't even joke that way."

"I'm not joking."

She wiped her hands across her features again, taking several deep breaths before she peeled them down. The effort to retrieve her bearings was seemingly for both their sakes. "This isn't solving anything."

Han agreed silently.

She checked her chrono, and then her fingers quivered between them, outstretched like the tiny sprigs of the ethereal Kerensiki tree before the rain. "We're going to be late. Come with me. We'll talk about this later when we've calmed down - before this gets any uglier and we both start saying things we can't ever take back."

The emergence of a brand new agenda rankled him. Had he not been locked on his ship alone for the better part of last hour agonizing over the messages, her other words might have made an impact, but he had no intention of acting the paladin for her at another royal affair. "I think it's best you go without me. Like I said, I changed my mind."

"Without you?" she gasped. "You can't do this – not tonight."

Han hardened the muscles of his jaw. "Watch me do it or get off my ship."

"Han-"

"_Go_."

"Oh fine!" She stormed down the passageway, stopping briefly by the Fabritech shipboard console. "Fine! You want to create an intergalactic incident over this, you go right ahead. You want to blow us, go right ahead too."

Han trailed just behind her, wanting to make sure she left and wanting to prevent her from leaving both at once. It was impossible to choose. "I'm not the one blowing it, Sweetheart."

"No, not yet. But you've got your course plotted out and the coordinates locked into your brain, don't you?"

Han bit the inside of his cheek. Leia trudged a reluctant few steps down the ramp, hesitating, looking as though she wasn't sure she should be going either. She looked back over her shoulder, expectantly, and he could tell she was shaken up– by either _him_ or _them_ or what was happening. "You'll be late," he warned finally. "You should go."

"One more thing."

"What?"

"I love you. I love you more than I've ever loved anything or anyone in my entire life. You know that. You always did. I don't want this to never die." With a weary sigh, she turned and spoke facing the darkness. "You want me to tell you I regret it. You know why I won't, Han. If you want me to tell you that afterwards I felt sick at myself, that I wished it was you, than you can have that? Is that what you want? Is that what's going to make you able to live with this?"

The pressure inside him abated with sickening rapidity, like oxygen being sucked out an airlock. Her shoulders quivered even through the layers of the heavy outerwear. "Leia-" he began.

"_No_," she cried out, flinging her fists wide against an unseen assailant. "No! There's your answer and I hope you choke on it."

Then she was gone.

After a minute of steady cursing, Han went and returned explosives to the bowels of the storage compartment and refit the deck plating. Then he ventured into the cockpit and rested his hands on the padded back of his pilot's chair. Straining his eyes against the darkness, he felt his heart twist into a series of somersaults, wanting to go after her and knowing he'd be better off waiting. When it least served him, he let his anger and jealousy get the better of him: when it had the potential to be most destructive, he unleashed it.

_You can be a real ass_ was his most persistent thought. _You can be a real-_

A microsecond flash of outside light distracted him. _Lightening_, he thought, but it was too small a burst, too localized to the right of the cockpit. He watched and waited for another flicker, and when none came, he spun out of the cockpit and hopped down the ramp in two steps. There he promptly bumped into something solid and movable.

Something human.

_Sweetheart-_

* * *

After Leia took the loaned grav-sled out to Eligel Proper's city drydock, Luke scoured the grounds behind their guesthouse, exploring all the way to the shores of the very same river where the _Falcon's_ captain had taken his swim. In fact, had Han decided to let the currents haul him along, they would have led him home, although hypothermia probably would have killed him along the way.

It was there, crunching the day-old snow and sheltered by the coniferous trees, that Luke took care of a pressing task

The young Jedi did not listen to the disk that the Corellian had given him, although he had carried nearly every day since it had been given to him. Instead, he preformed a very small ceremony, with no witnesses at all save the nacreous fishes and river creatures burrowing on their scaly bellies near the shore. Reliving that moment, assuring the galaxy his father's final acts had been selfless and repentant would not redeem Darth Vader. It would not help Leia heal. Never did he want to hear his broken voice pleading for his father to help him, nor did he want to hear himself suffering at the feet of the Emperor. The pain of electrocution flickered off and on in nightmares as it was; it would be alive on the recording.

Although he'd already planned to do this, Luke had to reassure himself that it had nothing to do with his conversation with his sister that morning. This was his own decision. It wasn't her eyes filled with hurt and hatred watching him now. It wasn't even knowing that a few months ago, she would not have asked for him in an hour of need because she felt so threatened by their father's legacy, by him. It wasn't the denial in her tone when they'd spoken that morning.

With his prosthetic hand, Luke gripped the thin metallic disk and bore down until he heard the casing crackle. Then he turned it a quarter-way and squeezed again. And again. And again. In the end, the disc was a fistful of miniscule bits and dust, which he sprinkled across the water as would have cremated ashes. Opalescent bodies shivered, needle-teethed mouths opened and closed for about the remains. Luke watched for a time, letting the close of the planet's day bless the symbolic funeral like an unspoken prayer.

He resolved to return to the guesthouse and prepare for the dinner, prepare to face the man who had guided and nearly destroyed his life by penning fallacious prophecy – the Supreme Prophet Kadann, if he was indeed here. There would be a way to handle it, though he wasn't sure what it was yet. He only prayed a solution came in time.

And considered that he felt terrible for abandoning Harmakh's niece the way he had.

There'd been no one for years – not since Gaerial, and again, though the similarities between the two women were sparse, the circumstances (acknowledging his feelings on the eve of his departure for both of them) were similar. The Bakuran girl had never openly offered herself to him. He suspected that Hataj was not so naive, despite her reclusive, solitary nature, though he was wholly ignorant about how sexual matters were regarded in her culture. Given the number of inconsistencies they'd run across on Yashuvhu when it came to women's restrictions and freedoms, it wouldn't have surprised him to learn they were extremely permissive, believing that meetings and couplings would not occur naturally as women were forbidden to move about in public alone.

The urge to discover for himself was overpowering.

_There is no passion_, he kept thinking, as though he could will his natural impulses to obey him. Unfortunately, it simply didn't work that way.

It wasn't merely the Code that deterred him from going to her or that deterred him from attachments. He'd spent half of the last two years seeking guidance, adhering to his own sermonic and didactic interpretations of Jedi lore, adhering to Master Yoda's instructions regardless of the dissension within himself. In essence, he was trying to figure out _how_ he was supposed to be who he was, because whatever precedents he set now were going to be what guided the Jedi of the future, what they looked back upon. Additionally, over the past two years, he had grown more agonizingly conscious of the fact that the entire galaxy, which would one day would know him as Darth Vader's son, was watching patiently to see what he, as the first Jedi-hero of a new era, would do next. Essentially, he was a Jedi Knight without a mandate.

Leia had interposed herself gently between his philosophy and lifestyle choices once, informed him he was becoming increasingly solipsistic, and that it wouldn't do for him to have been so isolated. "_You'll have students one day. And what will you tell them when they ask the most basic of questions about love_?" she had asked.

"I don't know," he said aloud, and his unseeing eyes returned to life.

He had ventured far from their panoramic estate and the entire walk had slipped by both his short-term memory and visual recall. The entire city of Eligel Properhad been built on a circular grid; blocks were torus shaped - he remembered the view from the _Falcon _when they had first arrived. The great courtyard bearing the statues of woman and children who'd died during the plague was at the intersection of several such blocks. Hataj's home was on one of such lesser divisions.

Immediately, his steps were heavy, those of the prematurely guilty. Had he seen the future of before and averted it? Or, was he bringing it to fruition with each footstep? Did he merely wish to make sure she was okay?

This time she was not in the kitchen preparing yammansk.

No one answered when he called. Luke followed his senses, seeking out the bundle of converging Force energy that distinguished her and shunned her all at once, that made his skin crawl and tingle slightly at the alienness of it.

The girl was in the central yard she and her uncle shared with their neighbours, bundled in her heavy kuba winter cloak. She was using a spoon-shaped hydroshovel to maneuver packed violet-tinged snow (the snowfall had blanketed the offerings of the last seedstorm) into the recessed drainage pits nearer the houses. Steam rose from the melting snow within the hollows.

When her next broad sweep brought her back to his side of the courtyard, he cleared his throat. "Would you like some help?"

"I only have one _peel,_" she returned, gesturing to her smooth-handled shovel, guarding it by her side almost possessively. Her expression was neither disappointed nor stirred by his arrival; it was calmer than he'd seen it since they'd first met. Just as Luke was considering Force-assisted means to clear the densely packed powder so that they could expedite their talk, she added, "And anyway, I actually enjoy doing it. In the deep of winter, this is my only chance to get much activity outside. Nevertheless, you don't have to wait out here. The scrolls are as you left them."

Luke smoothed away his flaring discontent. He'd come to apologize to for leaving the way he had earlier (or so he kept reassuring himself), and explain why he couldn't have stayed. Instead she was freeing him of any obligation, even his own decency, and doing so without acknowledging that they'd also not said 'goodbye'. "I didn't come for them," he told her.

"I won't be long. Go in. I'll just be a bit."

_A bit?_ It appeared she was cleaning the entire yard for her neighbours as well. The long snow-free patch stretched from her uncles home all the way across to the next dwelling, and the next, and then back again in a neat fashion. She was nearly half done, though far from being done in the next few minutes. "Why don't I stay in case you tire?"

"I won't. But suit yourself."

Luke sighed and resigned himself to waiting. For half an hour, he kept quiet company while she worked, without thought as to what he might say afterwards. He was no sooner to a moral resolution when she finished clearing the snow. Afterthoughts of his earlier vision didn't help him any.

"There." Hataj lay down the _peel_ just outside the portal and stripped off her gloves. "Now the drains can take care of it."

_Ah._ Luke stamped his feet, willing feeling back into his toes and appraising the wisdom of the city planners to arrange for precipitation removal via underground ducts. Now that she'd cleared the enclosure, he could see that narrow gutters ringed the dwellings, all leading to the drainage pits. Ingenious planning to be fair, seen only in places that were not 'built upon,' but those that were built with modern technology already in place. No, in terms of settlements, Yashuvhu wasn't that old. They called the current season here _pre-winter_ and it would worsen. "Most levels of Coruscant flood occasionally," he told her. "They lacked urbanized foresight when they built it – or they had no idea one day it would be nothing more than city for hundreds of levels."

"You return there tomorrow?"

Luke nodded. "I've let my responsibilities there languish long enough."

Hataj pushed past him, unfastening her cloak. She hanged it from a peg just inside the door and turned her bracelets around until they untwisted, standing in the open doorway in her sleeveless dress, exposed to the frigid air without seeming to notice or care. "Understood."

A luminous gloom settled over him anew. He stepped inside and closed the door, tightening his own clothing against his chill. "It is?"

"Yes." She moved into the kitchen to the eggshell-colored basin and activated the taps, holding her hands beneath the flow of water. She'd worked without gloves on; they were wind-burned and chapped. "I thought we were sharing a moment. I thought it was a mutual feeling."

_And apparently, it's very obvious to everyone else_. "It was – it is."

"It's not your way. I meant no disrespect to you."

"I know."

Still washing, Hataj edged sideways a bit so that she was almost facing him, but not enough so that they made eye contact. "This is how our Jedi lived. I assumed too much, applying our old traditions to us, as though it were back then."

Now Luke had no idea if she was knowingly offering him an excuse, a validation, or this was part of her apology, but her face was turned away from him. "I also wanted to tell you that you were right with what you said earlier. When you said that I don't belong to myself. I don't. Not the way my sister does, or Han or you do."

"I understand."

The days of the past two years lay barrenly behind him suddenly, decaying corpses which had never breathed life and experience, never been stirred by passion. That realization frightened him.

"_Gfersh_," he muttered under his breath.

She reached for a towel and began drying her hands. "Is that Basic?"

"No. Rodian."

"And what does it mean?" she asked.

"I'm not sure exactly." Granted, he might have wagered a guess based on the context in which Han Solo used it, but he didn't. Instead, Luke stepped up behind her, reached around to close the tap, and then gathered her by the hip and shoulder. She smelled of lindemorr soap, pregnant fijisi flowers and native teas. She froze at his nearness and his touch; he could hear her breathing break, and then her body settled into the curves of both palms.

"I suspect it means we're having another one," she whispered.

"Another what?"

"Moment." Without lifting her eyes, Hataj turned her head so that her cheek was couched on the back of his hand. Then she laughed and pulled her cheek away, twisting in his arms. "And you're so cold."

"Actually, I'm freezing," he said. Then he leaned down and kissed her fully, with no intention of going anywhere for the time being.

* * *

"Wake up!" Something hard and pointy kept stabbing him just beneath his ribs. "Damn it Solo! Wake up!"

"_Mmm_…" Han grunted. Duracrete dusted with dirt and lichenous scum sprouted directly beneath his slackened mouth. His entire body felt like a massive funny bone that had been slammed down hard and it was humming from head to toe. The voice badgering him lacked the usual Imperial condescension. Arrogant and bossy, but familiar and not an Imperial.

The annoying pokes intensified. "Han, wake up before I start kicking you."

"Leia?"

"Who else do you think it is?"

"I dunno." Groaning again, Han rolled onto his back. With slitted eyes and clenched fists, Leia posed above him. Beyond her, ceiling-ward, a massive globe lamp covered with tough synthsteel mesh bore down fiercely on him. She looked larger than life, carved from the light and angry enough to do the illusion justice. A pair of holocams flanked the globe lamp.

"This is all your fault."

"Huh? _Huh_?" Han struggled to recall what he'd done to deserve this or where he was. After another second, it all flooded back to him. Leia had been lying on the ground outside his ship and then… "_Fuck_."

"We wouldn't be in this mess if you didn't retreat to your ship as though it was your mother's womb the second anything goes wrong." She squared her fists at both hips. "We would have been with Luke."

"Is that so?" Han replied dramatically, struggling to sit up and shaking the circulation back into his limbs. Fortunately, his tongue and mind recovered first, though it took a few good spits to rid his mouth of the duracrete taste. "Yes, the almighty Jedi would have saved us all. Don't be foolish, Sweetheart. They would have found opportunity. They've been planning this for days, just as I told you two. I warned you, only no one wanted to listen to me when I said it."

Leia mumbled one of Alderaan's filthiest maledictions beneath her breath.

The entire chamber was maybe six by six meters, made of polished circumambient durasteel. There was no door but there wasa meter wide break in the wall. Han stepped up to the break, inspected the unguarded hallway and then coughed out a moist breath. Electricity crackled ominously in a small display of fireworks.

"Of course we can't waltz out of here," she snapped at him. "Believe me when I say throwing myself at an energy fence is almost preferable to being detained with you."

Han opened his mouth to remind her that they'd always done well in tight quarters, and then remembered _what _they'd been arguing about before the stun. He snapped it shut firmly in resignation. Whomever she'd slept with four months ago had suddenly become a much less pressing, very distant memory, although she was still living in the moment of the mood. Instead he tried to ignore her and began scrutinizing their surroundings.

There was one tubule air duct about a meter above them to the right of the doorway, but it wasn't large enough for either of them to fit through, even if he managed to hoist Leia up high enough to reach it and pry off the plating. Other than that, options for escape within the cell were nonexistent. They were only going out the way they came in.

The sub-level vibrating he'd attributed to the recent stun still hadn't dulled. It was in the floors. He swallowed dryly, crouching and pressing his palm down. _Hyperdrive or sublight_, he wondered. "Is that-"

"It's some sort of generator, thank the Force. They dumped us in here about ten minutes ago - I was coming to when they brought us through the halls. We're on-planet."

Han let out a heavy sigh of relief. Being a spaceborn captive was a thousand times worse than being planetside. _Actually no_, he thought briefly. _Worse would be not having Leia in the same cell and worrying about what was happening to her._ Granted, she looked as though she would have loved her own cell, even one with no more amenities than a hard bunk and hole in the corner. After another survey, he ascertained that the cell they were currently in wasn't designed for an extended stay.

Hoping they weren't going to be here that long, he scuffed his boot-heels against the floor and tried to imagine _who_ had been waiting for them at the drydock. Passes were required to enter; he had a black and gold laminated chip shoved in one pocket. The portmaster could see any activity from his office, and while it was likely the portmaster had been overwhelmed by their assailants, the voice at the back of his mind was saying the Tas of Yashuvhu had his sticky lecherous fingers all over it. As did the Imperials.

Although Leia looked as though she wanted to ask him, "How are we going to get out of here?" she seemed to think better of it, knotting her hair back at the nape of her neck. For the first time he noticed that she was clad a loose-fitting ankle-length gown of rich teal kuba wool. It was so sheer that it might have been blended with gossamer shimmersilk. The borrowed greatcoat was gone. So was the jacket he'd been wearing - though he couldn't remember much of use being in the pockets save a few loose credit chips.

"Aren't you a trifle overdressed for this kind of place?

"I was getting ready and merely went to retrieve you and see why you weren't answering." She moved stiffly as far away as possible, although he still could have reached out and touched her.

"Huh." For the second time in as many minutes, he remembered his own words of a short time ago and stifled the urge to bang his head against the walls. He wasn't sure what kind of man drove his lover to disburse shameful secrets he had no right to know or ask. "Well you look lovely."

Leia rolled her eyes. "_Think_."

"I _am_." The Corellian circled the room like a famished rancor awaiting his next meal, pausing beneath a holocam to make an obscene gesture at whoever was watching them. It might have been a Yashuvhi good luck sign, for all he knew. Then, still glaring at the holocam, he said, "What about Luke?"

"I'm trying."

"And?"

"I don't know if he's heard me."

"Are you sensing that he's in trouble?"

"No." More softly, she added, "I hope not."

There was movement in the corridor. Hoping the same, Han investigated, only to discover that their unexpected company was an emerald-feathered duuvhal. As soon as it saw him, it began whining and scratching outside the cell, poking its black unctuous tongue out between leathery lips. It appeared to be (and he wouldn't have believed it unless he were seeing it) _flirting_, and dangerously, with the energy field. "Get back before you shock yourself," Han commanded. "Back! Scram!"

Leia ventured near enough to see. Overjoyed at the additional attention, the creature promptly scuttled backward, flaring the its tail feathers and shaking its rear end from side to side. Then it began marking the walls with enviable accuracy. The scent of pungent musk drifted unhindered through the energy fence.

"You've got a new pet," she declared. "Another male competing for the same territory."

"I don't need a pet. I need a blaster and a disruptor to blow the energy field." Han stared at it, thinking. "But the Tas has these creatures running wild all over his palace doesn't he?"

"_Oh_." Her eyes widened. "You think-"

"I _do_. And I think the term 'farewell banquet' is about to take on a brand new meaning." 


	23. Chapter 23

**~Chapter 23~**

* * *

"Why don't you come with us?"

"To Coruscant?"

They lay in her bed. There was no mangled Force divide separating them, no negative space, no physical distance. Their skin was cocooned from chest to toe. Luke felt beautifully overwhelmed, unlike himself, pressing his fingers into her flesh along her back, devouring her with invisible fingerprints and psychic touches. His mind was high with illusions and things that shouldn't be; his heart was light and singing. With the Tas' interest in her looming, it was only natural that he offer her a means of retreat, a lamasery. Luke grinned and rested his ear on the fold of his arm. "Yes. To Coruscant."

"What of my uncle?" It was more an impulsive protest than a question.

"We have room on the ship for both of you," he replied, although that wasn't what she'd meant, and he didn't want to admit he had no answer.

So he proceeded to tell her about core world. About the city structures that stretched over five thousand feet above the surface. About how the farms and gardens and parks were all constructed in specially contained buildings with their own interior ecosystems – about how you could enter one and not know you were on the most populated planet in the galaxy. About the myriad of species and languages and colors and vibrant ring of life that had seeped into the architecture and rendered the entire planet alive (that was Luke's Force-enhanced impression, and he tried to explain that, not wanting her to feel left out because she couldn't). He omitted that atmospheric dampeners converted carbon dioxide to oxygen due to a shortage of plant-life, and said nothing about the fact that the planet generated so much artificial light that it was impossible to see the stars. He left out the dark and poverty riddled sunken levels of the city where crime flourished like weeds and survival of the fittest warred on between sentient and non-sentient creatures.

"I don't know," she murmured doubtfully when he finished, brushing a tendril of hair away from her eyes. "I'd enjoy it for a time because it would be new to me and then I wouldn't. Yes, I'm an outsider on my own world but I would still be an outsider on yours."

"I'm an outsider there," he insisted. "Every second person you meet wasn't born there and is trying to make their way." Luke scratched his cheek and punched down the lumpy faded cushion. "Well… that's not counting my sister, who is the Princess of the society insiders. And the political circles." He started tugging at the fraying edges of the cushion with pretended disinterestedness. "But you could go anywhere you want, travel. You don't even have to come for me." That came out badly. "I mean, I'd like it if you did, but don't feel you have to."

Hataj knitted her brows, one plain, one adorned, together. "Then why are you asking me to go with you?"

"I don't want to leave you here. Not with him." It was on the tip of his tongue to say it. Or, "you'll have a chance for something better," but he didn't want to sound patronizing, so he asked, "Are you happy here?"

The look on her face was wistful - not as though she was recalling happiness, no not that. She was only dreaming up an answer to his question. "This is my home," she said finally. "I do love it, when it comes down to it. I've never even thought of traveling. And then…" Abruptly, she cast her wistfulness aside. Her voice heightened with exaggerated excitement and she swept the quilted blanket up over her head, eyes shimmering the way light did on moving water. Then she set her chin lopsidedly on his chest. "I can see explaining it all to my uncle. You see Uncle Harmakh; to avoid the Tas I've decided to run off with the Jedi Skywalker across the galaxy to the center of the universe. And we're making you come along."

Laughing, Luke drew the blanket over both their heads. Maybe it was possible to fall in love with someone you'd only known a few short days. Or, conversely, maybe it wasn't and this was something else entirely he was feeling, more lust than love but he'd acted on it and he was privately glad of it. Whether the future had been waiting for him or he had preserved it by his actions – such concerns ceased. They had passed a point that could not be undone, a passing that had been as raw with emotion as it had been gentle in its resolution. They could come to know each other. They could learn.

"You could give it a try," he said, encouragingly, still wanting to take back his blunder of moments ago. He reached up, drew fine strands of her hair between his fingers and let them slip away helplessly. "I figure we feel this sort of connection with one out of one million people. Like we've always known each other."

"Do you feel this sort of connection often?" Her body moved over his suggestively. A cool hand settled on his hip.

"No. Almost never." Then he remembered the time resentfully, wanting to roll over and devour her. "But I'm going to be late for a meeting." He rolled her back and climbed free of the small bed. "With Kadann."

"Kadann?"

Most of what Luke knew was based on unsubstantiated rumours. He shared them. "He's been a seer to the Empire, to Palpatine for as long as any records go back – since the New Order's earliest days. He foretold the destruction of both _Death Stars_, of the Rebellion's ultimate victory. Supposedly he lives in a space station that patrols the Nu Territories – Scardia or something. He writes his prophecies, reads them to his followers."

Hataj ran her index finger across her bottom lip. "A _Death Star_?"

Luke reached for his shirt. "A massive space station capable of destroying entire planets."

"Oh." She shivered.

"We destroyed it," he added. "There are no more."

"Are you afraid of him?"

"I don't understand what he wants from me. I guess I'm going to find out soon – I'm late enough to the Tas' banquet as it is."

"Wait." Hataj sat up and pressed the edges of the quilt to her breast. "That's where you're meeting him?"

Luke's face asked the question.

"I'm part of the Tas' extended family," she explained. "We attend every state affair – or at least receive an invitation. We received no notice of an event tonight."

"He might have forgotten?" Luke began searching for his boots. And he heard it, felt the soft tugs at his subconscious for the first time, opening his senses wide, for he'd closed himself off from Leia without being cognizant of it, a reflex or an innate impulse devised to guard his privacy. Her pleas were as weary as they were frantic in their intensity.

_Luke, Luke, Luke... _

"This would be the first time in my entire life," she finished.

* * *

_Luke_, she thought. _Where are you_?

For the umpteenth time, Leia's frustration and indignation threatened to transform into full-blown panic. Again, her cellmate came to rest beside her as though he sensed this and squeezed her shoulder.

She was tired, hungry and worried. They'd been locked in the bare-bones cell without a trace of their captors for over two hours. The episode on the _Falcon_ was beginning to feel as though it had happened several lifetimes ago. To tell the truth, she'd expected his over-reaction to be worse. Han was hotheaded; he could shoot his mouth off with the best of them, (her own temper wasn't always to her credit either, thinking back to that night on Tatooine when she'd flaunted the affair). Already, she was prepared to cram it into the infinitesimal abyss with all the other fights they'd had. Even her parting words were beginning to suffuse her with a sense of contrition. Let him know it as it was. She didn't want it to eat away at him any longer. She wanted the past few months behind them once and for all.

Just as his shoulder-squeezing began evolving into a full-scale attack on the mass of knots at the base of her neck, she heard herself make him an offer. "I can have Winter handle it from now on."

The overture seemed to catch him off-guard. He dropped his hand and drew in a quick breath as if to say something. Then he swayed his head.

"What?"

"You don't have to do that," he muttered quickly, glancing toward the energy fence and the empty corridor.

She hesitated for a moment. Winter might find it an unusual request, but she would take the task with little comment. Never forget the unusualness of it, but take it and perform it well. "Yes I do," she reaffirmed, straightening her skirts. "It won't look particularly professional of me but I'll think of something to tell her."

"What about the Survivor's Fund?" His throat bulged as he swallowed. "Look, I don't want you to lose-"

"We won't," she reassured him.

"Is that what you want?"

After a few seconds for thought, she said, "Yes, it's what I want." And she meant it.

"Huh." Han scratched the bridge of his nose with his thumb, looking relieved beneath his hand and trying to hide it from her. "In case I hadn't mentioned it yet, feel free to start calling me a _wagyx _whenever you want."

Leia wiped away a greenish smudge from his cheekbone with the heel of her palm. "How about I save that for whoever's holding us?"

Han began playing with the piece of ribbon braided into the neckline of her dress. "That'll work."

"In your panic attack over all of the credits and worlds I might have dancing at my fingertips; I guess you never thought about where I consider home to be after the last few years, did you?"

"Where would that be?"

Leia rested her forehead against the fuzzy material of his shirt and stared at his battered combat boots. The truth, in this case, was almost too lamentable to put into words – she was only realizing the irony of it all then. It began to make her angry with him again, but he was doing something with her hair that would turn it into a rat's nest, but felt incredibly good, with his fingertips sliding from her crown to the nape of her neck and back again. It might have sounded silly to say it or try to explain it, but she could almost feel that he loved her through his fingertips; just by the way he was stroking her scalp as though he had a thousand years to do just that. So she made no move to escape although emotional physics dictated that she should pull away, spurn the touch of the person who had inflicted the recent damage despite what she might have done to deserve it. Despite everything, Han had a knack for always making her feel that way and she never wanted to lose him. She said, just as dark splotches materialized on the toe of his right boot and her throat began to tighten, "You can really be an idiot sometimes."

"Leia, I'm sorry."

"I know," she nearly said, but she changed it to "me too," at the last second. The power play between them had to end once and for all. "And the nearest thing I have to a home is actually closer to a beat up looking, jury-rigged _Corellian YT-1300_ freighter than even I want to admit."

Han's mouth joined the fingers dancing across the back of her neck. His tongue and teeth were playing over her skin, sending a thrill down her spine. "Betcha I know this place real well."

"Yes you do," she whispered. Han was tipping her head to kiss her but before their lips touched, clapping sounded from the hall. She wrenched her head free and pivoted.

A pair of men was watching them.

Both were clad in dark nondescript robes, partly opened at the top to reveal black standard issue Imperial uniforms. One had snow-white hair and was extremely pale and thin. The blue of his veins bulged visibly at his temples, beneath which dark eyes shone with an unnatural sheen, as though he were a backstreet glitbiter. Leia could see several gold-tipped rank cylinders slitted into his upper right pocket, although his insignia was partially covered by the robe. He fit the description of the man Han had seen downtown at the _Dancing Duuvhal_. By the expression on Han's face beside her, she was fairly sure he recognized him. The second man was a squat and very stubborn looking Rafan, whose distinctive blonde and brown striped mane was so closely cropped that Leia could see the corresponding epidermal pigmentation beneath his hair. He was smirking to himself with his hands frozen together in a final applaud.

"I'm so happy you could make it to the show," Han said in an emphatically dry and humorless tone. "We'd have sold tickets but you didn't leave us with a means to advertise."

Leia wasn't as interested in exchanging pleasantries. "What do you think you're doing holding us?"

"Imperial Intelligence has sufficient reason."

She allayed her fears long enough to roll her eyes and look extremely annoyed that she was missing one-hundred types of local hors d'oeuvres and aperitifs, as well as the company of the Tas' wives. "You have absolutely no jurisdiction on Yashuvhu. When the New Republic discovers-"

"That we've taken you into custody? Yes, it's unfortunate that General Skywalker requested the Tas not reply to theNewRepublic's query concerning yourselves, isn't it?"

_Vos_. The way Luke had put it, he'd more or less not 'encouraged' the Tas to reply, but the impact was going to be just as disastrous if they got them off-planet. No one would know – not only where he or she'd been, but also where they were going. Seeing no other recourse, Leia lied, grinning coolly without showing her teeth. "I've contacted Mon Mothma personally since our arrival. Don't think theNewRepublic won't seek retribution swiftly."

"By the time they realize you are missing, it will no longer be of concern to you."

"That's what you think," she retorted, wondering why an Imperial agent would be wearing his rank cylinders off ship. For access to what or where? The _Vibre-class_ assault cruiser wasn't big enough to have secured areas. But a Star Destroyer would... _If it's insystem_…

No.

She didn't want to know that yet. There was little they could do with the energy fence still in place – other than argue futilely with the agents and try to gather as much information as possible. If the agents were here with the Supreme Prophet Kadann, then they had come to Yashuvhu seeking one person and that one person was Luke. The capture of she and _Han was_ simply a lucrative fringe benefit.

"And oh… The local government has agreed to dispose of your ship for us, Solo. We'd add it to our fleet if it was remotely space-worthy, but since its structural integrity is in question they'll harvest it for parts. You won't need it where you're going."

"Why don't you go tell your imploding government to shove it, you piece of stim-pickled krillhead."

The agent still didn't twitch a facial muscle. "General Solo, your mouth's reputation precedes you."

_Wasn't I just thinking that minutes ago_? Leia thought, catching Han's face out of the corner of her eye. His cheek was spasming and his jaw was seized tightly. When she dropped her gaze she saw that Han's hands were balled up so tightly into fists the veins were popping out just below his knuckles. Leave it to an Imperial agent to kick it him where it would hurt most. Sometimes her upbringing managed to fall short of the right thing to say.

"We'll move them one at a time," the Rafan commanded, drawing back his robes and withdrawing a slim, arm-length weapon made of spun graphite. Leia recognized the stunted force pike and reflexively shuddered. The insulated handgrip was the only part of the weapon that wouldn't stun a full-grown Wookiee into dreams about forest gods, and once fully activated, the powered tip was capable of slicing through metal as though it were atomized butter. The energy fence was disabled with a quiet hiss, and then she and Han were left facing the two agents unarmed. A second force pike pointed in their direction and hummed quietly with ultrasonic-vibrations.

"You're making a big mistake," she countered, trying to remember if that particular argument had ever actually been effective. She noticed the duuvhal had grown shy or wisely disappeared from sight although she could still smell the pungent musk from the hall.

"Her, out," the white haired man ordered.

Han growled and stretched an arm out to block her. "Over my dead body."

"It would most likely be, Corellian," the agent declared, shoving the weapon to within inches of his ribcage. "The bounty for you alive is not much higher than for you dead."

"Han," Leia pleaded, sidestepping carefully forward with her hands raised in a helpless gesture. They all knew it for a fact. She and Luke alone were worth a million credits. Each. Alive. "I'll go."

"Say, aren't you forgetting something," Han said suddenly, without moving.

"What would that be?"

Han grinned wildly. "Niras is here and he's going to kill you."

_What in the mother of the universe_? Leia thought.

"What?" both agents said in unison.

"He's here on Yashuvhu," Han added, lowering his voice ominously. "Just as Kadann predicted. Did you know he killed one thousand women and children here before turning his own kin over to the Emperor? Cause he did. I'm sure you've heard about the women and children who died years ago – that was his doing. And I'm sure you've already heard about the massacre on Baskarn. Wait until he gets done with you. He didn't like it when they tried to take him into custody last time."

The pale-skinned man composed himself. "Skywalker has shown not the slightest bit of evidence that he is Niras."

It was worth a shot. Picking up Han's bluff where he'd left off, Leia furthered the story. "General Skywalker is hanging onto his sanity by a slim margin of control and came here trying to exorcise himself of Niras' demon. We only came to support him. None of us knows how much time he has before he cracks. You put him on your Assault Cruiser and there's no telling what he'll do to you or the men on your ship. He studied with the Emperor after all. He's more powerful than even… Vader's son."

The agent leaned over and breathed quietly. "My dear, Niras would have no qualms about turning you over to us. I doubt he'll lift a finger to save you, so spare us your fictitious concerns for our well being. And if he is Luke Skywalker we take all the spoils of war back to an Imperial system for trial."

"We'll die before that happens?" she whispered back. _They're not buying this_, she thought, just as Han asked, "What makes you so sure? You ever meet anyone who magically picked up a language overnight?"

This time, Han's efforts to rattle them were effective. Not even Imperial Intelligence would have data regarding Luke Skywalker's seasonal employment as a teenager. Foreigners would have no idea that Luke's linguistic skills were lacking, that his spoken Yashuvhi was broken and accented - at least, not without listening to him extensively. And Basic was the rigorously enforced lingua franca of the Empire. Because of this, many dedicated Imperial servants were unilingual; it was obvious they hadn't been able to hear the difference.

"I heard it in the recordings of the day they arrived," said the Rafan, sounding as though he half-expected Niras to come floating down the halls and disembowel him at any moment. (_Yes_, Leia thought. Their very first transport the evening they had arrived - the one Han had called an antique. That was the one place they hadn't been able to check for listening devices.) "He was talking to all of them; all of the Tas' priests."

Han shrugged and promptly capitalized on their irresolution. "I speak near seven languages fluently. Another handful passably. Let me tell you, I never soaked in syntax or vocabulary in a matter of days. Cause, when he woke up on Baskarn, he just knew. I've been sleeping with my blaster under my pillow ever since."

Leia smiled inside. He did that virtually every night, everywhere. Just then, she felt her brother reaching for her.

"Force-enhanced learning?" the Rafan replied. "I read somewhere Jedi could do that?"

The other agent searched both their faces scrupulously, and then waved the pike again. "Move!"

"Hey. Will you watch it with that thing," Han blustered. "We don't bite." He pointed to the duuvhal, which had crept up behind the pair and was flicking its long greasy tongue over its lips again. "That thing does though. Don't piss it off."

Leia had only taken two steps forward by now, so determined was she to stall. A man who looked thoroughly spice-happy when he was stone-cold sober and didn't care that he was planning on shuttling Palpatine's old lackey across the star system was not her idea of the 'ideal escort'. The disregarded reptile elevated the feathers along its ruff and tail, staring unblinking with rapt intensity behind her (as if Han was commanding it to do something, though she couldn't imagine what). Recalling that the creatures were poisonous, she began praying fervently that the thing would launch itself at the agent throat.

It did.

There was a flash of green sailing through the air and a howl from the second agent. Just as the duuvhal sprang, Han lurched into a roaring, screaming dive at the agent, thrusting Leia to the wayside so forcefully she heard the sound of her skull thwacking the wall.

* * *

In the eerily silent manor Luke Skywalker searched for answers. Despite the fact that the Tas was hosting an extravagant farewell dinner for his guests, the halls were barren of even his servants. The portals to all bedchambers, lounge areas, offices and dining rooms were sealed shut. There were no voices tapering off from within, no laughter, and no sounds of life. The scenario was oddly reminiscent of his arrival on Bespin, when no one had stopped him as he'd searched for his friend and sibling. There weren't even any guards.

And his Force senses were tingling madly with grim apprehension.

It was as it had been then, almost as if they were waiting for him and the carrion scent of an ambush was as familiar to him as the texture of sand. Luke peered cautiously around each bend, stretching out with his senses. If his initial feeling was correct, Han and Leia were deeper within the manor, somewhere below him. It had taken some convincing for Hataj to stay put; now he was extremely grateful that he had. He couldn't protect her and find the others at the same time.

After a cursory check of the main floor, Luke went to the banquet hall, wanting to see for himself that no one was there. The place where'd he'd first encountered the Tas of Yashuvhu was barren save for one small table in the center, scattered with pebbly flowers and dishes covered with woven baskets. The lighting within the walls was dim so that they shone like the inside nacre of a sea mollusk's shell, glassy and pale.

There was only one other guest, and he recognized him without having met him before. The same way he had sensed that Sarin was a Jedi, he knew the man awaiting him to be another Force user.

The meeting was upon him.

The Supreme Prophet Kadann was definitely human stock, although it was difficult to pin down to which region of the galaxy he had been born. Somewhere between middle age and old age, his appearance struck Luke as nearly alien, humanoid rather than ordinary human. Waxen ethereal skin gave way to black hair threaded thickly with grey. His lips were pale and washed out, thin and pinched. Even his nails were somehow alien, tapered to points, like the mottled claws of a vrelt, resting against his robes which gleamed like a shadow on still water, swimming with the shining walls behind him

Luke gestured to the vacant chamber. "A meeting of two?"

"I thought it was more appropriate that we conduct this in private."

"Where are Han Solo and Leia Organa?"

"We arranged to keep them detained downstairs for a small time. Just so that our business could be attended to first. They've not been harmed. You have my word."

Despite his odd, rather ghostly appearance, the Supreme Prophet's voice was deep and tonal, charismatic even. It was easy to picture him reading his quatrains before legions of followers, all rapt with the ecstasy of belief. Granted, Kadann's word might not be worth its weight in air. After a few deep breaths and he tamped the impulse to go for Han and Leia - he had a chance to learn what Kadann wanted and why before he staged a rescue - that was if Han and Leia didn't manage to rescue themselves first. There was a chance he might be reasonable, after all. Luke started off grand. "I have no business with you. Niras Alia Qu'aristoff, if he indeed exists, languishes in his own hell on the planet where he was exiled. I'm afraid you've wasted your time coming here for me."

"On the contrary," Kadann proclaimed, taking a seat. "To meet the first Jedi of the new millennium, New Order, is always an honor."

Meeting with the Supreme Prophet, contrariwise, was not what Luke considered an honor, but he was cautious. After a moment's pause, Luke relented, taking up a seat across from him and spreading his hands wide. "Then you admit your own prophecies are flawed?"

"I concede events occur that alter them after they are written. As occurs with everything in the Force."

And what do you do when your prophecies are tenable? Leak information that results in the manipulation of events. The question was; how far was he willing to go to substantiate his writings? In direct reaction to his prophecies the _Razion's Edge_ had been sabotaged, and that sabotage had supported the fulfillment of a prediction. "It's interesting, isn't it?" Luke ventured. "Acts of war, recently undertaken by a few individuals sympathetic to the Empire – inadvertently assisted your campaign."

"A genuine conundrum, it is, it is." This he said as though it truly baffled him, ignoring Luke's unspoken query and lifting an upturned basket. He fingered the speckled earthen pot that was beneath it. "Would you like tea?"

"I've had enough local tea, thank you."

Kadann sighed and set the basket on the tablecloth and flowers, frowning. "Your hostility is misplaced. I've only come to share my knowledge with you – to assist you."

"Pardon me? Your motivation to share knowledge is based on what? Honor? Goodwill? I don't think so." Luke set an elbow down and leaned forward, trying to shut out the appetizing smells of steaming hot food. "There is nothing that you could give me that I would take from you, even if it were free."

"Don't be foolish, young one." The Dark side Prophet narrowed his eyes and dipped his finger in an empty bowl. He idly traced the contours. "Don't be foolish. I know you well. Do you still blame yourself for what happened to your sister?"

Luke felt cold and sick inside, as though an invisible hand had reached inside and gathered his intestines into a ball. "What are you talking about?"

"Why she lost her unborn child. Surely you know that." Kadann savored the young man's confusion and sharp intake of breath the way he would a fine wine, trolling information drop by drop. "Oh…but that was also foreseen. Life and death are always absolute. It is how they come to be that wavers, just as it was long ordained that your father's trail of blood extend from one generation to the next." The prophet tapped his forehead. "There is much I choose not to inscribe in my texts."

"It had nothing to do with him," the Jedi replied. "Anakin Skywalker has been dead for nearly three years.

"You presuppose the dead cannot harm us?" He smiled in a manner that was meant to be solacing, but didn't quite succeed. "By now you've learned that is a misconception."

Luke gave a derisive snort and struggled to keep his posture noncombatant, his rising emotions concealed as he searched his recent memories. An irregularity with her blood and immune system. A condition, she had called it – one that had been treated and taken care of, and not related to Vader at all. Yet, Leia's defensiveness on Tatooine when pressed had been real, hadn't it?

How the prophet knew any of this was a mystery, but he was efficiently jabbing needles in the sorest of recent events. Luke reminded himself that this was what Kadann excelled at, just as the Yashuvhi Jedi had been healers, Kadann saw and twisted around. He found a crack and he pried it open. "I don't care to speak of my sister any longer."

"Very well then."

"What is it you want?"

"Let's talk about you."

"As I said, I am not Niras-"

"No. You are not."

The underlying meaning jolted him. "You knew him."

"Of course I knew him. And he knew me." Kadann touched a finger to his forehead. "Do you remember anything about your time as him?"

"No, I don't." Luke reflected on the men who died down in the jungles of Baskarn, on what had nearly happened to Leia that night in the jungles, on the women and children of Yashuvhu. "He was a murderer. He was sent to the Korriban station." He almost asked what the station had been for, but he knew enough. Jedi had died there.

"I also knew your father," the prophet ventured quietly. "Before he turned."

Luke nearly lurched involuntarily from his seat. "Did you?"

"Yes. Although I sincerely doubt he knew who I was. He seldom paid attention to the lesser phalanxes surrounding the Emperor – quite focused on one man and one man only. His mentor."

In all these years Luke had yet to find someone other than Master Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi who had known his father – and they'd told him precious little. The want to ask Kadann to tell him more burned inside him like a fired up nerve. But Luke didn't dare. Everything he'd told Hataj about the seer was true, along with the darker rumours. The seer was dangerous when he didn't get what he wanted. Luke pressed his lips tightly together – it was obvious he was expected to ask more. Then he spoke; "I'm not so naïve to believe you're here to offer me anything for free."

Kadann pointed a strange reptilian fingernail at him. "You seek instruction. You wonder why your father turned. Yes, I know preclusion and prophecy. I know the darker arts, as a war tactician knows his enemy. There is much I can teach you. There is much of the dark side you should learn – more completely."

_More completely_. Luke mentally sidestepped the reference to his brush with the Dark Side, recalling that Kadann had been one of the few who'd heard the tapes of the throne room battle. "As intriguing as this conversation is, as much as I want to know my father, and as much as you might seek to enlighten me, I will refuse you on all counts."

"You don't understand." Kadann's voice arched higher. "Whoever receives my blessing before the remnants – and I don't presuppose the same arrogance as the rest of the Imperial factions; it is indeed remnants spread across the galaxy – whoever receives my benediction, shall be accepted. With my help, you could bring the Imperials over to theNewRepublic. You could unite both factions. It would be easy. You could be a great leader."

Luke began shaking his head again. Only a child would posit that intergalactic affairs could be solved by a handshake. The NewRepublicand the Empire would unite when…well, as Han was fond of saying these days, when Hoth was listed as tropical in the _Falcon's_ spacer's guide. The wounds Palpatine's New Order had sown were bloody and barely scabbed over by the past three years. The ligaments that bound the new federation together were weak and untested. Half of recentNewRepublic inductees would balk and vote for secession. Another bloody war would follow. What Kadann was suggesting would take a dictator to carry out, not an elected leader.

"It wouldn't be easy," Luke countered, wondering what exactly Kadann would get out of such an arrangement. Power? Oddly, he sense that Kadann was less interested in leading himself than in aligning himself with power – with someone he could influence. He was weakening. A new and very welcome though occurred to him. "If you are truly a seer you know that theNewRepublicwill win. Palpatine was so drunk on his own power, on his own unadulterated hatred, that he failed to see his own limitations. He failed to see that in the process of obtaining the souls and lives of those around him he'd damned himself. Now he's gone and what's left of the Empire is crumbling in upon itself. There's a lesson for all of us there."

"What if I told you that you were right?"

"I know that I am right."

Kadann smiled with meticulously planned amusement. "The son of Darth Vader is an optimist, is he? What if I were to tell you that you might be the one to undo everything theNewRepublichas accomplished."

"I would tell you that it's not possible." Luke glanced toward the southwest entrance of the chamber. Leia's energy was beyond it. "Your solicitation is nearsighted. I want to teach," he explained. "I'm not interested in remaining with theNewRepublicservice any longer than they need me. I'm not like my father."

The prophet nodded. "You shall teach."

"Then you see you've wasted your time coming here for me."

Ignoring him, Kadann filled a pair of small glasses inlaid with gold rings and set one before him. "There is so much to be seen. You scoff at me now, and yet you will take this opportunity when the time comes. I have foreseen it. What will happen is unavoidable. It is your destiny, just as it was your father's, and from that decisive moment forward, your future will be uncertain."

The words had a vaguely familiar ring about them, although he couldn't quite recall ever hearing them before. "I'll take my chances and rely on my own judgment."

"Yes, Jedi Skywalker, you do that and you shall be the one responsible for returning the Emperor to power. Your own actions in the future will lead you there."

"That will never happen." This conversation kept coming back to haunt him like a broken holo-recording. First Sarin on Baskarn, now Kadann. "He's dead."

"Or he still exists," Kadann replied, unrelentingly.

"What is it you want?"

The Prophet extended his hand palm up. "Perhaps you might indulge me before you go and we adjourn. Have some tea," he offered again. "It clears the mind and clears the spirit. It's my private brew. It comes from the fungus-infested bark of the Endorian tree. Tell me what you see, and if you still are not convinced as far as I'm concerned, you shall be free to go."

Luke batted at the tabletop with his knuckles. "I already said I don't care for it."

"Don't be afraid. Only you can find the answers."

The prophet had made no attempt to call for back up. And, as sheltered as his Jedi knowledge was, he knew such chemical substances existed that enhanced the ability to glimpse the future. At least, he'd read about them. And he was curious. Kadann's pre-knowledge of events was frightening. He wanted to see – wanted to see if there was any truth to what he was saying.

"Yes." Kadann whispered.

Luke squinted. The tea looked like soot and ashes mixed with tepid water. It sounded too disgusting for him to be lying about it. Fungus-infested bark? He lifted the cup to his lips and sipped a small amount, refusing to swallow it without rolling it around in his mouth first. That was a mistake; the beverage was so putridly bitter he wanted to spit it out to spare the back of his tongue further torment, but he forced it down. Kadann finished his in one gulp, as though it was Tandorian sweetwater. After one more taste he set his next to a covered platter.

Nothing changed at first.

"Open your heart and your mind," Kadann said.

Luke felt a trickle of sweaty apprehension run through him. He rested the back of his hand on his forehead as if to see if his flesh felt warm, but he couldn't tell if his forehead was warm against his the back of his hand or his hand was cool against his forehead. The banquet hall was so quiescent the lights buzzed inside the walls like nafens in the night.

Then the vision settled across his sight like incense-smoke, like a scarf of the finest carmine silk drawn over his face. He saw the flash of a pale white blade, behind which a woman hid, veiling her features with a long mane of dark hair. There were voices overlapping, as though a thousand separate beings shouted into the great canyons of his homeworld and their echoes never found them again. He struggled to break through the whispers and screams, and between them, in flashes, he recognized the emperor's voice… and himself.

_I will teach you things you never have imagined. It is your destiny my friend… to succeed your father…to wield my discipline over the worlds that have betrayed me! You can still conquer me… by learning the secrets of the dark side. We both know there is no other way for you. Destiny has forced me to follow the path our father took… it was the only way…_

_So vulnerable… so inexperienced… and yet it is she who holds the key to the future! You will kill your sister if I ask it you will kill your sister if I ask it you will kill your sister if I ask it…_

Choking, Luke actively forced the chemical from his brain and body. Heart pounding, he scanned the vicinity and then deeper within himself, his heart, his mind. He sensed none of the darkness that had been at once part of him and reaching for him. Still whispering urgently at the back of his mind was his sister. "_It's time to come home, Luke. It's time to come home_…"

Kadann was nearly smiling. "What do you see? What do you see?"

"Nothing." Luke gritted his teeth. _It means nothing. It means nothing at all_.

* * *

Other than the duuvhal, Leia was the only conscious being when the melee ended. Considering how sound of a smack to the head she'd taken, that was just barely. Her few coherent thoughts were survival instincts - that they flee before more agents arrived – until she saw that Han was laying on his back like a sack of un-husked milk tubers waiting to be tossed on a city skyhopper. Well, of course. What he'd done - charging the agent - was insane, although it took another fuzzy moment to piece together that he'd likely done it to prevent the agent not being mauled from slapping the energy fence back on.

Good for them. But bad for Han. She didn't know how long it would be before someone noticed the agents were delayed.

Desperate, Leia darted to the fallen pair. Both lay on their backs. The Rafan bore a jagged throat wound. The other agent's bloodied wrist was resting over his heart. Their eyes were open and they were still breathing but neither moved or made a sound. The duuvhal's venom had paralyzed them at lightspeed.

"There's no antidote," she murmured to herself, and the pale eyelashes of one man fluttered. Leia wondered if he was conscious and cursing her to hell. Her skin crawled thinking about it. "I'm sorry," she thought aloud. "But you should have known better."

Leia rifled through their belt pouches quickly, found what she was looking for and wrinkled her nose. All variety of law enforcement agents generally carried a generic brand of stim-shot with them which could jolt prisoners back into a state of groggy, cooperative wakefulness when needed. The drugs weren't always safe and they weren't usually employed except when absolutely necessary – which was now. On second thought, she grabbed a force pike too.

The duuvhal was crouched next to Han's head and lapping at his cheek. Leia shooed it back, crouched, and pressed the dispenser up against his neck.

After one discharge, Han began moaning to show it was working. The second hit him like a rapid shot of adrenaline. He snapped awake, breathing heavily and promptly drew his body into a twisted ball, as though he was in extreme pain, groaning and coughing.

Stricken with worry, Leia dropped to her knees on the squalid ground and brushed his hair from his eyes. His face was contorted in agony, his teeth bared in rictus of pain. She'd never seen anyone react to a stun this way. Frightened, panicked, she tugged his shirt up, in search of a visible injury. There was no blood, no broken skin, no bruising. "Han?"

"_Uhnnn_."

"Han? Han?

_Uhnnn_ became a volley of swears.

Leia pulled her hands back and set them on her knees. He was, if it were possible, angrier than he was in pain. "What's wrong?"

His voice sounded as though an Imperial Walker was in the process of slowly putting its foot down on his diaphragm. "The bastard shifted the pike down right before I hit it."

"Oh," Leia murmured, unclear what that meant. His leg? His knee? "Where?"

"Where do you think?"

Leia exclaimed, "Oh!" and covered her mouth, torn between offering sympathy and laughing hysterically. Han had taken the bulk of the blow in the groin (there weren't many other injuries that temporarily left grown men incapacitated and in fetal positions). It wasn't funny, but it was, and underneath it she was terrified if she couldn't get him on his feet they weren't going to be alive for very long. She couldn't hear anyone coming yet. It didn't seem fair to ask, but she didn't know what else to do. "Uh…can you walk?"

Han's eyes were still slits. "Do I look like I can walk?"

"Not quite."

"If you'd just left me unconscious a little longer this wonderful feeling might have passed before I woke up."

"I'll keep that in mind for next time," she replied, thinking, if Han is captured because of this he'll never forgive himself. _No, actually, I'll never forgive myself_. With that she gathered one arm over her shoulder and summoned every bit of strength she had to haul him to his feet. Tomorrow, she'd be lucky if she could get out of bed - if she had a real bed and wasn't residing in the local Star Destroyer's cellblock. Han hugged her as though she was a support beam, making distressing hissing sounds.

The going was nearly infeasible. Despite the fact that Han was conscious and mentally alert, he staggered and labored to align one foot in front of the other. It was like walking a wrecked drunk back to his room after a dozen Starshines too many while being on a ship dodging asteroids in an asteroid field. Leia hung on, propelling him against the wall so that he wouldn't fall over on top of her. She was afraid to give him any more of the stimulant, and anyway, she'd dropped the tiny canister on the cell floor behind them. They bungled their way past half a dozen empty cells, toward the winding ramp at the end of the hall. Fiery opaline stone peeked back at them from around the bend.

"Wonder if this is where he sends his wives when they disobey?" Han muttered sarcastically. "Surprise, surprise. Let's go crash the party."

Fighting to ignore her screaming muscles and the fact that she was sure her back had just gone out three times in a row, Leia contemplated their options. She wasn't physically strong enough to propel Han up an incline in his current state, and if they encountered any unfriendly individuals he wasn't going to be much help either. There were no footsteps sounding from behind them but there undoubtedly would be soon. To the left of the ramp was a small door built into the wall, similar to a laundry chute or garbage chute. Praying it proved to be neither, she half-dragged, half-willed Han over to it, saying, "I have an idea."

It failed to impress him. "This is your idea?"

"It probably leads to the kitchens," she insisted, very hopefully. Yashuvhu had no droids that Leia had seen, and it made perfect sense for them to employ such old-fashioned means of delivering meals throughout the wings. She pressed the controls at the right, and to her relief, the panels separated and revealed nothing more than a shiny miniature turbolift. The allacrete chamber was barely big enough for the two of them to sit upright in, but it would have to do. "You won't make it far like this and I can't carry you."

"I think you need to find the brain that came with your head."

"Do you have a better idea?"

Han closed his eyes, wearing the same weary expression he did whenever she mentioned the words, 'state dinner.' "No."

She took advantage of his current state and shoved him in headfirst. After yelping, and with some help, he managed to flop over and haul himself into an upright position. Then she lifted his legs and forced his knees to bend so that his feet fit too.

Task accomplished, Leia paused. She could leave him here and go look for Luke… but no. Han would be unarmed and she couldn't risk that. She crawled inside and hauled the train of her gown in after her. Their friendly champion, who had been following them, jumped and whined, not wanting to be left behind.

"No way," Leia muttered.

"No, no, little fellow. You're not coming with us," Han admonished. "You go that way and if anyone comes after us, you bite 'em hard."

It ogled Han trustingly, and then began pit patting down the hall.

"That thing is actually listening to you." Leia paused to wonder before manually slapping the outside controls and whipping her hands back inside. She still wasn't sure what Han had done to get it to attack the agents in the first place.

"Yeah, it's kind of frightening."

As soon as the lift began moving, Leia fumbled in the darkness and spread the force pike between them, activating it and holding it parallel to the lift floor. Warning Han not to move a finger, she counted to five and jammed it sideways through the wall of the lift and switched it off. The pole's blade caught, arching downwards; the lift strained and shuddered, and then the safety mechanisms kicked in.

Then they waited, quieting their erratic breathing beneath their arms and drawing their limbs in tight whenever they heard footsteps outside in the corridors. At least once it sounded as though an entire brigade of Imperial agents ran past. If the Imperials assumed they had escaped, they were going to assume they'd gotten as far away as possible, and quickly.

Soon the lift was hot, the air stuffy and stale with nervous sweat. Leaving prisoners tied up (in any number of uncomfortable positions) to recover from a stun blast was a popular form of mild torment favored by bounty hunters, the Espo and the Empire (most civilized worlds outlawed it). It was a horrid way to shake off the lingering muscle cramps and tingling spasms. Han was squirming miserably within minutes, bracing his legs in absurd positions over her head. Sympathetic, Leia rubbed fiercely at his calves and chatted to distract him. She told him that she'd sensed Luke nearby right before the duuvhal had sprung. And commended him on his quick thinking. At least, it had caused the agents to pause long enough for the duuvhal to act.

"Yeah, the language factor," Han said, between groaning under his breath. "It would have made me think twice. It's kind of nutty if you ask me – that of all the places in the world we might wind up he'd speak it, but at least I can chalk it all up to rational explanations. They can't. It's only a pity they're not going to be able to pass that information on to their superiors." Han shifted his seat around again. "You get the feeling they don't really care about Kadann finding a new leader for their order or was that just me?"

"They'd rather kill Vader's son," Leia ventured anxiously. Million credit bounty or not, Luke would not survive the return trip.

"We won't let that happen." Han's determined grimace was there, albeit in the dark. She felt his fingers trying to give hers a squeeze just as he resumed trying to stretch out his legs in the tiny enclosure. Then he said, "I'm getting a hell of headache."

Leia realized she had quite the headache herself, recalling something he had said to her in the hours before they arrived at Elrood weeks ago. Trying to sound casual, she asked, "Is it actually true that a well-aimed stun blast has some rather unpleasant side effects?"

"Why? You worried?"

There wasn't enough light for her to see Han smirking, but he didn't sound worried, so Leia decided she wouldn't either. "Never mind."

"It's kind of like concussions," he went on. "If you're human and you get more than five, they pull you out of the Smashball League altogether." Han sighed grievously. "This might be very bad for our sex life, damn it. I should have pulled myself off the court long ago."

Leia whacked him with the cuff of her sleeve.

Han started laughing. "I'm so glad you have your priorities in order, Your Highness." Then he leaned over and, even though they were already whispering, added more quietly, "Why don't you just move your hand a little higher and check."

Warm-cheeked, Leia got in a few more slaps with her sleeve before they decided it had been silent outside long enough for them to dare moving. She wrestled the pike free and swept it around the lift ceiling, remembering to cut it at an outward angle so it wouldn't cave in on them. Grainy light filtered down from the cracks in the sealed paneling up above, breaking up the blinding darkness. They were about halfway to the next floor.

Leia popped up the cutout ceiling, pushed off of Han's shoulder into an upright position, and set the ceiling piece on its side by her feet. The air was cooler and she instantly felt more clear-headed. She tugged at her gown, plastered with sweat to her back and the undersides of her breasts, and leaned back against the cool polished stone within the shaft. Han clumsily followed suit. By the time he was upright, the lift was creaking and whining with every movement.

"I've always wondered what it would feel like to be walled up alive," he commented wryly. "Now I know. I don't like it."

It was true enough. They were facing each other with the walls at their elbows and backs. She lifted an eyebrow in the heady darkness. "Maybe you'd like it better back in our cell."

"Oh, cute," Han answered, loosely embracing her. "I know I've heard that one before. I think I've said that one before. And you seem to have a pronounced affinity for bizarre escape tactics and tight enclosed spaces."

"Hey, that's not my fault." She contemplated the circles he was tracing along the back of her ribcage. His hands were working just fine again, and she was about to comment on it when warm, firm lips pressed her back.

"Just making sure they worked," he whispered against the nape of her neck. "There's the beginning of your thanks. I owe you big."

Leia smiled against him. "I know."

Then Han said, "Sweetheart, marry me."

"What?" Leia held her breath. She'd heard him but had trouble processing what he'd just said.

"I want you to marry me."

The bulk of her brain was furiously in shock. The rest was overwhelmed, speechless. She might have asked him if was serious, except that she could feel that his entire body had tensed all over, as immobile as the granite surrounding them. The cords along his neck were jutting out. Her breath came out in a long whoosh, and then, "We're hiding in a food service shaft," came out after it, as if that somehow made the proposition an impossibility. "Er… no," she stammered. _Damn it Leia. Say something that makes sense. Anything_. "Wait. That's not what I meant."

"Okay, look." Han cupped her face, sounding uncharacteristically serious. "I figure we haven't exactly had many of our moments during peacetime. It might be bad very luck to start now. It's definitely too late for you to trade me in for someone with a clean past and reputable acquaintances," he continued. "So, yes or no. I love you and that's that and if you say 'no' then we might be stuck in here for very long time until you-"

Leia seized him by the shoulders and nodded eagerly. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, you crazy Corellian. I love you too." She hopped, winding one leg around his thigh and bracing a knee against the stone while she pressed her lips to his. There was at least one thing in the horribly fragile universe that was strong and good and wonderful and she was hanging onto him for dear life. She kissed him once, and then drew her mouth along the line of his jaw, below his earlobe, to the underside of his chin.

After a moment, he crushed her back against the wall and began laughing. His smile had never been quite as crooked or as charming as it was now. "Lady, this means our truce is going to be official and you're not going to be able to get rid of me."

"I'm counting on that," she murmured.

Han added, a trifle desperately, "Okay stop or we're not going to find that brother of yours."

She bit her lip, grinning. "Just checking."

"You don't know what you're giving up," the Supreme Prophet was saying.

"I do," Luke replied, wondering how long it would take him to find Han and Leia. The false philanthropy was fading fast. Just then, his sister burst into the chamber at a full run, followed by Han.

"Where were you?" Leia panted, taking in the barren hall and coming to the same conclusion he had when he'd first arrived. What had once been a lovely gown was now lank, streaked with dirt and torn in at least four places. Her hair was in disarray and barely held back. Han was just as dirt-stained, looking as though he'd tumbled out of one of the _Falcon's_ engine cores brandishing a force pike. Other than that, they physically looked none the worse for wear. "This is the farewell banquet?" Han asked at the same time.

"Sorry," Luke murmured, feeling awkward. "I didn't know. And yes."

"Did they get you too?" Han asked Luke.

"No, I came here on my own."

"Crazy Jedi," the Corellian muttered, shaking his head. "Crazy Imperials. Crazy planet. Can we leave now? I've had all I can take."

"I'm working on it."

"I hope it's going well."

It wasn't. Throughout the exchange, Luke kept a keen eye on Kadann's movements across the table, and saw him click something small around his wrist several times. Imperials suddenly began amassing in the posterns surrounding the hall. Only one agent entered, striding briskly to the prophet, making his obeisance known with a quick bow. He turned toward to trio, disgust evident on his angular face. "Agents Kranus and Ruur are dead."

"I didn't do it," Han insisted, angling the weapon threateningly in the vicinity of the Imperial's midsection.

The man glowered and set his hand on his blaster, but the end of the pike stayed him from action. "They were attacked by one of the…one of the…" He grimaced terribly. "Well, it appears one of the Tas' pets bit them."

A duuvhal? Luke raised on eyebrow in question. Leia nodded at him.

Han began counting the waiting brigade amassing outside the hall. "Hey Luke," he said. "You always say the Force is an extension of your will. How about we will walk out of here and these guys will start doing the Bantha Breakfast Biscuit Ballet?"

"That's not what it means," Luke returned.

"He's been nearly proton-shocked and a few other unpleasant things today," Leia explained apologetically. "Please don't mind him."

Against his will, Luke felt the corner of his mouth twitch, but he couldn't afford to let his concentration break. Beneath Solo's rather belligerent attitude, Luke didn't need the Force to know that Han blamed him, and rightly so, for getting them into this mess. Now he was saying, less than eloquently, _get us out of it_. "Kadann, tell your agents to back off and give us leave to depart. You've nothing to gain from me. If they attempt to take us captive, they will die."

The Prophet uncharitably declined his assistance. "As far as I'm concerned, you are free to go. However, they may differ with me. I can't help you otherwise. "

_Pathetic_, he thought, not dangerous. Kadann was barely in control of the agents who'd accompanied him to Yashuvhu. Perhaps Luke had been his last hope, his last stretch for real power. This was going to be messy. "I'm not going to change my mind."

The Imperial Commander stepped forward. "Either you come willingly and save your friends, or we resort to less pleasant alternatives."

"That's still up to me."

All eyes turned to see the Tas Mos'ir enter at a somber pace, flanked by his troupe of royal guards.

"We'll have back-up here within the hour, Your Grace. There's nothing you can do."

"He's lying," Luke said, drawing the bluff from the man's mind easily. "Half a day."

Leia sighed with relief. The Tas turned to the Imperial Commander. "My planetary forces are on alert and outnumber yours one-thousand to one within the city. I can have back-up here within the hour."

"We had a deal, Your Grace."

"I'm creedbound by my own discretion and nothing more," the Tas replied, turning his attention toward Luke alone. "_We_ had an arrangement, didn't we?"

"She's a very nice girl," Luke replied, trying to ignore Leia's rather scrupulous wonder to his right.

The Tas Mos'ir nodded reproachfully. "That's all, Jedi Skywalker?"

"That's all." Luke stayed his reach for the lightsaber at his hip. The Tas couldn't know he was lying unless he already knew, and then, Luke didn't know why he didn't just come out and say it. Unless he was going to turn this episode into a matter of honor, and then, Luke still resolved not to tell him unless he had no other choice. At the moment, the Royal Guard, armed with only old-fashioned stunners, concerned him because he had no desire to injure men who were obeying orders. There had to be a peaceful means to end the conflict; one that involved the three of them on the Falcon, and the Imperials returning to whatever Star Destroyer they called home empty-handed. One that did not involve the truth about Hataj.

"Are we free to go?" Leia asked, looking less optimistic by the second. "This is becoming rather insufferable."

"Indeed it is," the Imperial Commander agreed, straightening his lapels and insignia band. Again he muttered coarsely to himself. "We had a deal."

"Let them go, Tas Mos'ir."

The voice belonged to a woman. Hataj strode across the hall with her head held high, her dark hair drawn tightly back, lips pinched. She refused to meet Luke's eyes, staring straight at the Tas without hesitation. "Let them go because I'm asking you to," she implored.

"Hataj don't," Luke begged. Don't."

"There's no other way," she said.


	24. Chapter 24

**~Chapter 24~**

* * *

The cluttered crew cabin slept four, but three of the berths were covered in supplies and the safety webbing was drawn up over them. Luke lay on the only empty bunk holding a dilapidated helmet, staring at the massive monochromatic ceiling to floor lockers across from him and wondering how Han managed to open them without handles. They'd once had handles – he could see the marks where the bindings had held them in place, they simply weren't there now.

They'd been in hyperspace for just over forty standard hours.

Despite the fact that they had all been invited to the bonding ceremony, he'd insisted they leave Yashuvhu straightaway.

The truth was he couldn't bear the thought of it. There was no need to see the Tas' face roiling with its fleshy gloat. He hadn't heard her right. Since they'd departed, he'd retreated to the spare bunk and lain still, trying to sleep, but unable to, staring through his lids while Hataj's face burned like ascorbic acid in his memory. He needed to shake off his blankets, wake up, go back, and hear it all again.

There was a soft rapping outside the quarters.

_It didn't happen_, he thought. _It wasn't all real_.

"Luke, are you awake?"

Avoiding his sister and her questions had been another reason for secluding himself. So far, he'd managed to acquire enough nourishment on the sly to stave off any gnawing hunger pains. Unfortunately, he could tell by her tone that she was planning to be insistent this time.

Luke tossed the helmet to the foot of the bunk and sat up. "Come in."

The hatch unsealed with a whoosh. Leia was holding a data reader and wearing a determined expression he knew well. "Hi," she said, slowly coming to sit and letting her limbs drift over the edge of the bunk. "How are you?"

"I'm fine."

"You can't stay locked up in here alone until we reach Coruscant."

"I am fine."

"Far be it for me to try and argue with you." Leia sighed heavily. "Look. Maybe I was overstepping my bounds the other morning. I shouldn't have pushed you – told you to take the chance-"

"I'm not angry at you for encouraging it, if that's why you're here," he added. "Whatever went on between us went on because I chose it." He'd chosen and he could recall the moist stickiness of their skin in the aftermath without effort, peeled painfully apart. He heard her voice, laughing, saying, "and you're so cold," over and over, so he could lean down and kiss her again. His imagination replayed the past and the past became more familiar to him in the present. He noticed things he hadn't. That the tapestry hanging behind her bed was of a planet with twin suns. He'd never asked about that. He also remembered their first night on Yashuvhu, when the ruler had droned on about his wives and wedding. Now he would have one more about which he could tell tales.

_No. You can't do that_.

Looking dubiously aggrieved, Leia replied, "All right," and sank back on one elbow. "Then why are you in a self-imposed exile on a small ship?"

"If you were her would you have done it?"

She was unable to hide her revulsion at the suggestion, though she tried to, sweeping at a spot on her knee. "What kind of question is that?"

"Would you have done it?"

"It was her choice."

The clinging anger that had been precariously balanced inside him for so long tumbled free now that someone was there to absorb it. "She did it so that he wouldn't turn us over to the Imperials. It was blackmail. It wasn't a choice." He wondered if it had been part of the Tas Mos'ir's plan all along. That made it all the worse.

"Luke. Respect her decision. She did what she felt she had to do. And she cared for you. I could see it. I know that."

"I know that." He cleared his throat. "I asked her to come with us."

"You did?"

"Yes."

"What did she say?"

"She was considering it." Perhaps that was what smarted the most – that escape had not slipped away when she had made her plea and offered herself. It was as though she'd dismissed the possibilities beforehand, and elected to end the battle before it had begun. Elected to stay. The Tas Mos'ir had demanded a vow of commitment before they were released. Her Uncle Harmakh had been there, blaming him for the turn of events, but Hataj had taken the vow solemnly – with a surety that he'd not glimpsed in her silvery eyes in the time he'd known her. They'd only spoken once before they swept her away. _It was meant to be_, she'd said, the same as he was meant to come to Yashuvhu and uncover her secret. Maybe she'd known more than she'd let on. Maybe even bereft of the ability to control the Force, it had randomly reached for her. "I don't mean to snap at you. It's not you."

"I understand. Believe me, I do." Just as she said that, the central heating panel gave a fizzling, dying sputter. She clucked indignantly to herself. "Damn it. I thought I fixed that."

"You fixed it?" Luke forced an apologetic smile. "That explains a lot."

"_Hey_." Leia went to inspect the vent. She gave it a good slam with her right fist, and the sputtering resolved itself instantly. When she turned around, for a moment she reminded Luke of the woman he'd seen striking at his vision after drinking Kadann's tea. The lights behind her were effulgent, made her tunic appear as though it were an aura all its own, and beneath she was made of fragile flesh and bone. All that was missing was a lightsaber. Instead the data reader waved above him like a boxed trinket. "I have something for you." She pressed it into his hand. "Go ahead. Turn it on and check the display screen."

Cautiously, Luke took it and found he was viewing one of the holos she'd printed off on Baskarn. It had been out on the gaming table the day he'd discovered the truth about Niras. Niras was next to Palpatine; children were waiting to offer them flowers. A third man was just to the left of the Emperor's shoulder.

"I scanned it in," she explained matter-of-factly, "so that we could enlarge it and see him better. You've always wondered what he looked like."

_See who_, Luke thought, but Leia tapped her finger on the corner and the display screen zoomed in on one man. The similarities should have been obvious, the intensity. He should have seen it. Perhaps his own familiarity had blinded him, as though he'd stared at a reflection in a mirror so long the image had blurred over, or he no longer recognized himself. Anakin Skywalker's eyes were defiant, almost condescending.

"You look like him a little… but not as hard. He looks so hard."

Luke was suddenly trying to picture those fine features, the tanned skin, scarred and burned beyond recognition, the heavy mane of thick sun-dusted hair gone. He shuddered to imagine a person so physically disabled and destroyed that he existed only as a shell within a suit, dependant on life support and ventilators, a technological marvel.

She said, "When I look at him, I know he made his choices long before he became Darth Vader. If he went to Yashuvhu with Palpatine, he knew what he was doing. He was already on that path."

He nodded mutely, too stunned to say anything.

"And I can't help but wonder what terrible things could have happened to him to make him become the person he did? I wonder if he could have known what he was to become."

"I don't know," he whispered, feeling sick inside, searching the corners of the crew cabin for a distraction so he didn't have to look at her directly. For when his imagination wasn't lodged in the past, it was reliving those moments under the influence of Kadann's tea. He wasn't sure if he'd had a waking nightmare, or if his own subconscious had acted in a psychosomatic fashion, creating what he saw by virtue of free association. The Emperor was dead. He'd seen him die. He would never tell her what he'd seen and heard but there was more to it. He stopped looking away. Words came to him, wraithlike, coiling inside his throat, waiting to be set free. "Is it true that he's responsible for your miscarriage?"

Leia's expression was plaintively wounded. "Han told you?"

"No."

"Then who-"

Shame cramped his breathing. He wasn't sure what had made him say that. It wasn't any of his business, honestly. He reached for her shoulder. "I'm sorry if I'm intruding. Leia – _he_ knew. Kadann knew. I don't know how. Han didn't say anything, not a word."

"How could he know that?" Her voice was threadbare.

Then it was true. "The same way he knows everything he does." He grimaced. "You could have told me."

"I would have eventually." She closed her eyes. "When I was ready. I still had traces of Xebonica and Loquasin in my system."

"Standard Imperial narco-interrogation drugs."

"They have – or had long-term side effects. I'm okay now. I will be okay." Leia picked up the helmet. Then she began inspecting the inner padding and the broken blast shield. By the time her careful perusal revealed to her that the hinges of the blast shield had been torn off, she looked as though they'd been discussing nothing more than what to eat for dinner. "I came in here to tell you something else."

Luke turned the datapad over. "All right."

"You asked me on our way to Baskarn if I would think about training with you. Since then…" She breathed deeply. "I've come to a decision. It's yes – if you'll still have me."

"You will?"

"I will."

"Why the change of heart?"

"I've come to see it's going to have its place in my life." She shrugged casually. "You were right with what you said on the _Razion's Edge_. For millennia the Jedi served as diplomats and peacemakers. That is what I am. And there will be those who will seek to exploit my potential. I have to protect myself and those around me."

"Yes, you do."

"Of course, it can't be full time. My work is most important to me-"

Luke held up his hands. "Agreed." They would work around her schedule, when he was on Coruscant, when they had time together. Still… there was more too this than she was saying. "I think something else is going on."

"There's nothing going on."

No, there was something else, and he'd been sensing it since the other night. "You've been brimming over with some kind of sugar-juice high for two days. Don't think I can't sense that."

Her eyes were widening. "You can't possibly sense that."

"As you said, we're confined to a ship. I'd like good news if you have any."

Leia ducked out from beneath the upper bunk, grinning, beaming crazily. "I guess I'm not going to be able to hide it from you. You have to promise not to say anything."

He waved at the empty quarters. "We're in hyperspace. To who?"

"Anyone at all, once we get back. No holo-journalists, not Wedge Antilles or Lando Calrissian… no one."

"Because the first thing I usually do whenever you tell me anything is run to press?"

"Han and I are getting married when he gets back from his next assignment."

"That's wonderful!" Luke straightened and embraced her tightly. "I knew it! I knew it!" He drew away and clasped her hand between his. Emotions tumbled between words. "He's good for you, you know. Although… in the long of it you're probably better for him."

"Don't forget to remind him of that."

"I won't."

"Oh, and I almost forgot. The duuvhal?"

"What about it?"

"Well…" Leia tugged her hand free and headed for the door. "It's just that Han thinks he has some sort of magic talent or newly found telepathy with animals and it's just damn irritating to listen to him go on about it. He keeps saying he was thinking at it_, You take the big one; I'll take the little one_, at it. You said it was the Wookiee hairs, right? They rescued it from a Kuati circus?"

For the first time in two days, Luke heard himself laugh. "Oh, he's delusional all right."

"You're sure?"

Luke followed her. "As my very first engagement gift, how about I go tell him that myself?"


	25. Chapter 25

**~Conclusion~**

* * *

**Several weeks later:**

They stayed Han's last night on the docking frigate.

While he slumbered, Leia meditated and prayed. Old Alderaanian invocations tumbled easily; she'd learned them by heart before she could read and they were as much a part of her as her native language. She tried not to wonder if her childhood gods had perished with her world, for she felt comforted by the effort, even if Han or Luke would have deemed it foolish. As it was, she faced the next few months with a dread tantamount to preternatural grief. They were at risk. They were foolish, weren't they? They'd put themselves in a position of having so much to lose.

The temptation to beg him to stay was unwavering, but she couldn't – wouldn't – except for the last time they'd made love when she'd mouthed the furtive transgression against his flesh over and over through each and every quivering spasm. It was the only way, for she knew he might listen to her, that he was anxious about leaving her too. But this mission was as important to him as it was to her. Han wasn't fighting the Empire by accident any more. He was a New Republic General in more than name; he was as important to the war effort as she was. Privately, she was proud of him.

Just then Han cracked one sleep-creased eye open, almost level with her. The low bed was stacked against the transparisteel portal and they could watch Coruscant beneath them and the stars beyond before they fell asleep. "What are you doing over there?"

It was not morning on the planet below, not morning on the freighter drifting above her atmosphere either.

"Nothing."

"Get back here." Han thumped the empty space. "You're not allowed to get up yet."

"Says who?"

"Says me."

It was, oddly enough, his utter and complete cockiness that accomplished what her prayers and meditations had not – she knew it then, that it was more than hope. It wasn't even a Force enhanced impression or a divine intervention

Many hours of conversation over the past few weeks had condensed their relationship down to one innocent and newborn truth. Han needed to be needed. She had only to trust herself to need him.

And now, trust him to come back.

"Says you?" she teased, scurrying on her hands and knees and climbing back into bed. She let him push the robe she'd draped about her shoulders back onto the floor and haul her up against his body.

"Yeah." He grinned sleepily. "You're supposed to ready and willing whenever I say so, remember."

"Is this some prehistoric spin regarding the rights of a man about to go to into battle?"

"I have rights," he said, sliding his hand along the inside of her thigh. "Lots and lots of rights."

"And you've been taking full advantage of them," was her reply.

"You like it."

"Maybe."

Abruptly, Han paused and lowered his voice. "Promise you'll check on her."

"Absolutely." Despite the fact that there was plenty of room for her on the _Mon Remonda_, he was leaving the _Millennium Falcon_ with her.

"_Really _promise me."

Leia propped herself up on one elbow and fixed him with her most solemn expression. "Now tell me again, how often does she need to be watered and fed?"

* * *

Later that day, back on Coruscant, Luke pulled brotherly rank and insisted on having dinner with her, despite her assurances that she wasn't going to mope. She had six piles of backlogged files to scroll through and fifty meetings to reschedule. Threepio was also staying full time with Luke, working on the Yashuvhi scroll translations. Her brother claimed it was as much to save his sanity as it was to keep her company.

This occasion was also a bit of a celebration for him.

After three days of debriefings, she and Han had been cleared of all charges. Luke, on the other hand, had been taken into NewRepubliccustody the moment he arrived on planet and had remained there for the better part of the last month. In closed proceedings earlier this week, the Provisional Council had voted twenty-nine to eleven to suspend any and all active criminal proceedings against General Luke Skywalker. They found the extenuating circumstances exceptional, the numerous psychological evaluations compelling, and Luke's military record immaculate. These facts were compounded by the arrest of the real saboteurs of the _Razion's Edge_, both of whom had been linked with Imperial sympathizers.

As Mon Mothma had implored during her summation, "We cannot punish or even address the nature of the crimes when the accused is subject to a force most of us cannot comprehend. Do we judge the man or the powers that sought to control him? Are we qualified to even make the distinction? If not, can we condemn him for our inability to serve as his jury? I say we can not." Most had agreed with her.

The automated door monitor announced the arrival of a guest. Leia drew the door open, expecting her brother, and found a courier standing there. The man extended a round package. "Delivery for you, Your Highness."

At that moment, Luke swept around the corner armed with several thermal-sealed parcels.

Smiling, Leia signed for the package and carried it to her sofa while Luke brought the food into her kitchen. The door clicked softly behind them. The delivery had to be a last minute gift from Han. "What did you decide on?" she called.

"I picked up Alderaanian."

"You didn't have to do that."

"I wanted to. Naturally, if they had a place with Tatooinian specialties, I'd have gone there."

She pried at the heavy wrapping. "Does Tatooine actually have specialties?"

"Popdoppers, tangaroot, bristlemelon pie, dustcrepes, bantha stew, manak casserole. They've just never caught on off-world."

"Why doesn't that surprise…oh!" Her response lost, Leia stared at a familiar tawny cloak, lost in the swamps of Baskarn all those weeks ago. A few lumpy objects were wrapped inside it; she unfolded it quickly and several purple pockmarked fruits spilled onto the floor, as well as a small leather pouch.

"That's mine?" Luke gathered his cloak in his hands. "What are those?"

"Brrka fruit," she told him, reaching for the pouch. In Basic, scrawled in tiny glyphs on the outside, was one sentence; _destiny calls and we answer_. She withdrew the item inside and held it up; the amber colored jewel glittered. How this had been delivered to them all the way from Baskarn was a mystery but the meaning was clear. Her heart pounded fiercely, eager, relieved, and afraid for her brother all at once.

"I thought he was dead," her brother gasped.

"You can't go to see him, Luke. You can't go back. Promise me you-"

"I won't."

There had been one codicil placed on the Provisional Council's resolution. Luke was not allowed to fly within fifty light years of Baskarn for the remainder of his natural life. It would be viewed by the government as an act of aggression. There was no legitimate reason besides; Advanced Base Baskarn was being closed down. The new Republic was designating it a protected planet, as per Leia's recommendations. The Yrashu would live in peace. The Hmumfmumf forests would continue to sprawl unchecked.

"I swear to you I never will."

It was a quiet dinner. It was only afterward, when they were reclining on the couch that Luke confirmed that he had withdrawn from the military again. "I'm going to be here on Coruscant for the next month or so, and then I'll be off. Threepio has already turned up a few leads – a few planets mentioned in the scrolls that had ties to the Yashuvhi healers and the Jedi Order here on Coruscant. I'm feeling optimistic. Oh, and before I forget to tell you…" Luke made a wide gesture with his hands. "Admiral Cracken has agreed to conveniently misplace the files regarding Anakin Skywalker's true identity for the time being. I saw him today." He brought his hand back to his chest. "It will come out, of course. There are enough in Imperial Intelligence who have access to the information now, but it will be a slow, slow trickle for the next year or so. You'll have time to prepare for it."

Relieved, Leia uncoiled her fingers, which had unconsciously clenched at the first mention of Airen Cracken. She took a deep breath, checking to see if Luke had noticed. He hadn't. "Speaking of preparing for it, did you want to start tonight?"

Luke grinned broadly and inspected a Brrka fruit. Then he began peeling long strips of rind back. "No."

"No? Are you sure you're feeling all right?"

"We have plenty of time for study and practice," he replied. "Tonight I'm here only as your brother."

"You don't have to be," she reassured him, smiling back. "I'm ready whenever you are."

There was a flicker in his eyes – for a second she thought it was reluctance or apprehension but then his eyes were warm again. He said, just before he bit into the fruit, "Sister, I know." Then he swallowed and reached for the amulet. "May I have this?"

"If you want it."

Tenderly, he placed it back in the pouch and tucked it away in his pocket. "There's someone else I think should have it," he explained. "And I think she'll understand what it is."

"Destiny calls and we answer," Leia murmured.

All Luke could do was nod.

**~The End~**

**Thank you for reading.**


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